credential vault
a protected store holding the passwords and keys a system needs
Automated systems have to log in to other systems — databases, cloud accounts, email, AI providers — so they keep those passwords, tokens and keys somewhere. A credential vault is a store built to guard them, with tight access controls and monitoring. The paper's warning is that many automation platforms act as a vault without being protected like one: the secrets sit in the same process that runs user formulas.
Think of it as
The key cabinet in a building's security office: valuable precisely because one cabinet opens every door, so it needs the strongest guard.
Ideas that use this term