A Secret Is Not a Tool Setting
A connection can name the credential it needs without becoming the place that governs the credential itself.
A tool connection needs to say which credential it depends on. That does not make the connection the right place to govern the credential. Mixing the two can make a readiness screen quietly become a secret-management surface.
Current state
WTK treats connection configuration, current readiness, and authority as separate facts. Credentials support those facts, but their lifecycle has different risks: inventory, replacement, removal, and exceptional access must not become incidental side effects of browsing a tool list.
Changes
One completed local engineering cycle separated credential management from tool settings. Connection status can refer to a credential without exposing its value. A separately bounded credential path keeps ordinary inventory masked and restricts an exceptional view to a short, reauthenticated local session.
The useful observation is architectural, not a claim that secrets are solved. Moving the sensitive lifecycle behind its own boundary made the relationship between a connection and its credential visible without treating one as the other.
Failures observed
When credential handling is folded into tool configuration, an operator can lose sight of what is being inspected: whether a connection is ready, or whether a sensitive value is being managed. An available connection can also appear to carry more authority than the package has actually granted.
Assumptions removed
We cannot assume that a tool settings surface is an appropriate authority surface for credentials. We also cannot assume that a masked inventory, a configured connection, or a successful check grants permission to reveal or reuse a value.
Evidence
This is one completed local engineering observation with focused authorization checks and a bounded local inspection. It demonstrates the implemented separation and its stated access limits under those conditions.
Limitations
This is not a penetration test, an operator-comprehension study, a cross-target comparison, or evidence that credential handling is comprehensively secure. It does not establish that every target preserves the boundary or that a configured connection is safe or ready for every action.
Next hypothesis
Hold a credential reference and package authority fixed while exercising setup, removal, revocation, and recovery across distinct targets. Retain each authorization decision and verify that connection readiness never widens into secret access or package execution authority.
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