I still remember sending API keys to my friend across Discord during hackathons. For years, everything sensitive I owned lived in a file. SSH keys in ~/.ssh, API tokens in .env, and the odd password in Notepad. That works right up until you set up a new laptop, or open a project and can't tell which .env file holds the live key.
1Password is what replaced all of that; it's the tool from this series I'd least want to give up. The passwords are almost beside the point. What changed how I work is how a developer-first password manager fixes the problems in your workflow you never see.
This is the first post in a short series on the tools I lean on, and one idea runs through all of them: stay fluid across a pile of machines and operating systems, and keep it all under my control.
What "developer-first" actually means
A normal password manager stores logins, autofills them in your browser, and ends there. A developer-first one handles everything beyond that: SSH keys, API tokens, database URLs, and .env contents. It gives you a CLI to inject those into your shell at runtime, and it can act as an SSH agent so your keys never sit on disk at all.
