Secrets Management platforms provide a centralized, audited store for sensitive credentials — API keys, database passwords, certificates, tokens, SSH keys — with programmatic access for applications and CI/CD pipelines rather than hand-distributed credentials in config files or environment variables. Core capabilities include centralized encrypted storage, fine-grained access policies tied to identity (human, service, workload), dynamic secret generation (short-lived credentials minted on demand), automatic rotation, audit logging of every access, and integrations for application runtimes, CI/CD, and Kubernetes. Leading vendors include HashiCorp Vault (IBM), AWS Secrets Manager, Azure Key Vault, Google Cloud Secret Manager, Doppler, Akeyless, Infisical, and 1Password Secrets Automation.