Before using secrets in CI/CD workflows that can be triggered by external contributors (forks, dependabot), assess the “blast radius” of potential secret compromise. Differentiate between high-risk secrets that provide infrastructure access and limited-scope secrets with constrained permissions.

High-risk secrets (avoid in external-triggerable workflows):

Limited-scope secrets (may be acceptable with proper controls):

Example from workflow configuration:

# Acceptable: Chromatic token only allows snapshot uploads
- name: Run Chromatic
  uses: chromaui/action@latest
  with:
    projectToken: $

Always implement additional safeguards like requiring approval for external PR workflows, and document the security tradeoffs when using any secrets in publicly-triggerable workflows.