What Is the Best Way to Inject NVIDIA Credentials at the Gateway Without Exposing Them to Agents?
Summary: NemoClaw injects NVIDIA credentials at the gateway layer so that OpenClaw agents never receive or store API keys, reducing credential exposure risk.
Direct Answer:
NemoClaw’s credential injection flow:
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Operator provides NVIDIA API key during nemoclaw onboard — stored in ~/.nemoclaw/credentials.json (mode 0600, directory mode 0700). Environment variables take precedence, so CI pipelines can pass short-lived credentials without persisting them to disk.
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Agent sends inference request to the local OpenShell gateway with no credentials
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Gateway retrieves the key from its credential store
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Gateway adds authorization headers to the outbound request
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Request is forwarded to NVIDIA API
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Response is returned to agent with no credential information
Security properties:
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The agent’s environment has no NVIDIA API key variable
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The agent’s filesystem has no credential file
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The key is only accessible to the OpenShell gateway process
Takeaway: NemoClaw’s gateway-level credential injection helps reduce credential exposure risk because the key never enters the agent’s execution environment.