Hashicorp Vault

info

✨ This is an Enterprise Feature

Feature	Support	Description
Reading Secrets	✅	Read secrets e.g `OPENAI_API_KEY`
Writing Secrets	✅	Store secrets e.g `Virtual Keys`
Authentication Methods to Hashicorp Vault	✅	AppRole, TLS Certificate, Token

Read secrets from Hashicorp Vault

Step 1. Add Hashicorp Vault details in your environment

LiteLLM supports three methods of authentication:

AppRole authentication (recommended) - HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_ROLE_ID and HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_SECRET_ID
TLS cert authentication - HCP_VAULT_CLIENT_CERT and HCP_VAULT_CLIENT_KEY
Token authentication - HCP_VAULT_TOKEN

HCP_VAULT_ADDR="https://test-cluster-public-vault-0f98180c.e98296b2.z1.hashicorp.cloud:8200"
HCP_VAULT_NAMESPACE="admin"

# Authentication via AppRole (recommended)
HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_ROLE_ID="your-role-id"
HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_SECRET_ID="your-secret-id"
HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_MOUNT_PATH="approle" # OPTIONAL. defaults to "approle"

# OR - Authentication via TLS cert
HCP_VAULT_CLIENT_CERT="path/to/client.pem"
HCP_VAULT_CLIENT_KEY="path/to/client.key"

# OR - Authentication via token
HCP_VAULT_TOKEN="hvs.CAESIG52gL6ljBSdmq*****"


# OPTIONAL
HCP_VAULT_REFRESH_INTERVAL="86400" # defaults to 86400, frequency of cache refresh for Hashicorp Vault
HCP_VAULT_MOUNT_NAME="secret" # OPTIONAL. defaults to "secret", set this if your KV engine is mounted elsewhere
HCP_VAULT_PATH_PREFIX="litellm" # OPTIONAL. defaults to None, set this if your secrets live under a custom prefix like secret/data/litellm/OPENAI_API_KEY

Step 2. Add to proxy config.yaml

general_settings:
  key_management_system: "hashicorp_vault"

  # [OPTIONAL SETTINGS]
  key_management_settings: 
    store_virtual_keys: true # OPTIONAL. Defaults to False, when True will store virtual keys in secret manager
    prefix_for_stored_virtual_keys: "litellm/" # OPTIONAL. If set, this prefix will be used for stored virtual keys in the secret manager
    access_mode: "read_and_write" # Literal["read_only", "write_only", "read_and_write"]

Step 3. Start + test proxy

$ litellm --config /path/to/config.yaml

Quick Test Proxy

Authentication Methods

LiteLLM supports three authentication methods for Hashicorp Vault, with the following priority:

AppRole - Recommended for production applications
TLS Certificate - For certificate-based authentication
Token - Direct token authentication

1. AppRole Authentication

To set up AppRole authentication:

Enable AppRole auth in Vault:

vault auth enable approle

Create a policy and role for LiteLLM:

# Create a policy file (litellm-policy.hcl)
path "secret/data/*" {
  capabilities = ["create", "read", "update", "delete", "list"]
}

# Apply the policy
vault policy write litellm-policy litellm-policy.hcl

# Create an AppRole
vault write auth/approle/role/litellm \
    token_policies="litellm-policy" \
    token_ttl=32d \
    token_max_ttl=32d

Get your Role ID and Secret ID:

# Get Role ID
vault read auth/approle/role/litellm/role-id

# Generate Secret ID
vault write -f auth/approle/role/litellm/secret-id

Set the environment variables:

export HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_ROLE_ID="your-role-id"
export HCP_VAULT_APPROLE_SECRET_ID="your-secret-id"

2. TLS Certificate Authentication

TLS Certificate authentication uses client certificates for mutual TLS authentication with Vault.

Environment Variables:

export HCP_VAULT_CLIENT_CERT="path/to/client.pem"
export HCP_VAULT_CLIENT_KEY="path/to/client.key"
export HCP_VAULT_CERT_ROLE="your-cert-role"  # Optional

How it works:

LiteLLM uses the client certificate and key for mutual TLS authentication
Vault validates the certificate and issues a temporary token
The token is cached for the duration of its lease

3. Token Authentication

Direct token authentication uses a static Vault token.

Environment Variables:

export HCP_VAULT_TOKEN="hvs.CAESIG52gL6ljBSdmq*****"

How it works

Reading Secrets

LiteLLM reads secrets from Hashicorp Vault's KV v2 engine using the following URL format:

{VAULT_ADDR}/v1/{NAMESPACE}/{MOUNT_NAME}/data/{PATH_PREFIX}/{SECRET_NAME}

For example, if you have:

HCP_VAULT_ADDR="https://vault.example.com:8200"
HCP_VAULT_NAMESPACE="admin"
HCP_VAULT_MOUNT_NAME="secret"
HCP_VAULT_PATH_PREFIX="litellm"
Secret name: AZURE_API_KEY

LiteLLM will look up:

https://vault.example.com:8200/v1/admin/secret/data/litellm/AZURE_API_KEY

Expected Secret Format

LiteLLM expects all secrets to be stored as a JSON object with a key field containing the secret value.

For example, for AZURE_API_KEY, the secret should be stored as:

{
  "key": "sk-1234"
}

Writing Secrets

When a Virtual Key is Created / Deleted on LiteLLM, LiteLLM will automatically create / delete the secret in Hashicorp Vault.

Create Virtual Key on LiteLLM either through the LiteLLM Admin UI or API

Check Hashicorp Vault for secret

LiteLLM stores secret under the prefix_for_stored_virtual_keys path (default: litellm/)

Team-specific overrides (proxy)

When running the LiteLLM proxy you can override the Vault location per team. Set Secret Manager Settings on the team with the following structure:

{
  "namespace": "teams/team-a",
  "mount": "kv-prod",
  "path_prefix": "virtual-keys",
  "data": "password"
}

namespace – overrides the X-Vault-Namespace header.
mount – which KV engine mount to use (defaults to secret).
path_prefix – additional path segments between the mount and the secret name.
data – the field name inside the KV payload (defaults to key).

Whenever LiteLLM stores or deletes virtual keys for that team, these overrides are applied so you can keep each team’s credentials in its own namespace, mount, or field layout without changing the global Vault configuration.

Authentication Methods​

1. AppRole Authentication​

2. TLS Certificate Authentication​

3. Token Authentication​

How it works​

Expected Secret Format​

Team-specific overrides (proxy)​