[Yandex Cloud documentation](../../index.md) > [Yandex DataSphere](../index.md) > [Concepts](index.md) > Resources > Secrets

# Private data storage

To safely store keys, passwords, and other private information, DataSphere provides a special type of resource called _secrets_.

A _secret_ is a key-value pair with the value stored in an encrypted format. After you create a secret, you will see `***` instead of the value.

Secrets are created in a [project](project.md) and assigned to it. You can use created secrets in a cell code as environment variables to securely connect to [data sources](../operations/index.md#connections-to-data-sources) and [version control systems](../operations/projects/work-with-git.md); you can also use secrets to store keys required to create other resources, such as [S3 connectors](s3-connector.md).

You cannot edit a secret created in a different project, but you can edit its [copy](../operations/data/secrets.md#copy).

A copied secret is not linked to the original: you can edit and delete the former without affecting the latter.

{% note tip %}

The advantage of secrets is that their values are stored and transferred in encrypted form only and cannot be used when publishing the code and in project logs. Do not output the value of a secret to the screen or assign it to a regular variable.

{% endnote %}

## Information about a secret as a resource {#info}

The following information is stored about each secret:
* Unique resource ID.
* Resource creator.
* Creation and last update dates in [UTC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time) format, e.g., `July 18, 2022, 14:23`.

The secret page also contains sample bash and Python code for running the resource in a project cell.

## Scope of secrets {#scope}

Once created, a secret is available for a project. Like any other resource, you can [share](../operations/data/secrets.md#share) the secret in the community to use it in other projects. To do this, you need at least the `Editor` role in the project and the `Developer` role in the community in which you want to publish it. You can open the access on the **Access** tab on the secret view page. The secret available to the community will appear on the community page under **Community resources**.

## Use cases {#examples}

* [How to create, edit, copy, and delete a secret](../operations/data/secrets.md)
* [Classification of images in video frames](../tutorials/video-recognition.md)
* [Creating an MLFlow server for logging experiments and artifacts](../tutorials/mlflow-datasphere.md)
* [Deploying a service based on a Docker image](../tutorials/node-from-docker.md)