This article provides guidance on migrating secrets to AWS Secrets Manager, focusing on discovery and design phases. It addresses common secrets management anti-patterns and outlines a structured approach for organizations.

• Secrets lifecycle comprises create, store, use, and destroy phases requiring protection
• Secrets Manager offers IAM integration, logging, monitoring, encryption, and automatic rotation capabilities
• Discovery phase involves assessing and categorizing secrets using decision trees (retire, retain, relocate)
• Collect metadata including owner, application name, environment, data classification, and usage function
• Design access controls using ABAC with standardized tagging schemes for scalability
• Implement detective controls via CloudTrail, AWS Config, and CloudWatch for monitoring and alerting
• Use VPC endpoints and Zero Trust principles for network-layer protection
• Encrypt secrets at rest using AWS KMS with least-privileged key policies
• Cache secret values in applications to improve performance and reduce API costs
• Develop incident response plans following NIST SP 800-61 framework

This first part establishes the foundation for secrets migration by emphasizing discovery, classification, and secure design principles before implementation.