Benchmark provider secrets via Doppler

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title: Benchmark provider secrets — Doppler setup description: How to run Astrocyte benchmarks against real LLM providers via Doppler both locally and in CI.

Benchmark provider secrets via Doppler

Astrocyte benchmarks run two modes:

• Mock provider (--provider test) — no API key needed. Fast, deterministic, used by the per-PR regression gate against benchmarks/baselines-test-provider.json.
• Real provider (--config benchmarks/config.yaml) — uses OpenAI for LLM + embeddings. Produces the numbers that inform positioning and that users actually care about.

Doppler is the source of truth for real-provider secrets both locally and in CI. This guide covers the one-time setup.

Local developer setup

Astrocyte uses project astrocyte with environment bench as the benchmark-secrets home (separate from prd so production credentials never load into bench processes).

# One-time: install Doppler CLI and authenticate
brew install dopplerhq/cli/doppler
doppler login
cd ~/AstrocyteAI/astrocyte
doppler setup --project astrocyte --config bench

Required secrets in the bench config:

Name	Purpose
OPENAI_API_KEY	OpenAI credential used by benchmarks/config.yaml’s ${OPENAI_API_KEY} substitution for both completion (gpt-4o-mini) and embedding (text-embedding-3-small) calls.
R2_ACCOUNT_ID	Cloudflare account ID; the S3 endpoint is derived as https://<R2_ACCOUNT_ID>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com.
R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID	R2 API token’s access key (scoped read/write to both buckets below).
R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY	R2 API token’s secret.
R2_BUCKET	Private bucket holding raw run JSONs. Astrocyte’s canonical value: astrocyte-benchmarks.
R2_BUCKET_PUBLIC	Public bucket holding the aggregated trajectory artifact the docs site reads. Canonical value: astrocyte-benchmarks-public.
R2_PUBLIC_URL	The r2.dev URL Cloudflare assigns when public access is enabled on the public bucket, e.g. https://pub-<hash>.r2.dev. Read by the Astro docs build to wire the trajectory chart.

The six R2_* secrets back the benchmark archive. The private bucket holds every completed run’s results-*.json so trajectory data survives beyond /tmp and isn’t checked into git. The public bucket holds a small derived trajectory/<bench>.json artifact (~20 KB per bench) the docs site fetches over the r2.dev URL for the time-series chart. Raw per-question detail stays private. See bench-archive.md for the full layout and the archive/fetch tooling.

Run any benchmark command with doppler run -- as the prefix:

cd astrocyte-py

# LoCoMo smoke test — 20 questions, ~30¢
doppler run -- uv run python scripts/run_benchmarks.py \
    --config benchmarks/config.yaml \
    --benchmarks locomo \
    --locomo-path datasets/locomo/data/locomo10.json \
    --max-questions 20

# LongMemEval — pricier per question (longer contexts)
doppler run -- uv run python scripts/run_benchmarks.py \
    --config benchmarks/config.yaml \
    --benchmarks longmemeval \
    --longmemeval-path datasets/longmemeval/data/longmemeval_s_cleaned.json \
    --max-questions 100

Output writes to benchmark-results/. To promote a run to a tracked snapshot:

cp benchmark-results/results-$(date -u +%Y%m%dT%H%M%SZ | cut -c1-15)*.json \
   benchmarks/snapshots/locomo-v3-real-openai.json
git add benchmarks/snapshots/locomo-v3-real-openai.json

See benchmarks/snapshots/README.md for the naming convention.

R2 bucket setup

One-time setup before the R2_* secrets above can be filled in.

Step 1 — Create both buckets

Cloudflare dashboard → R2 Object Storage → Create bucket. Repeat for each of the two:

Bucket	Public access	Purpose
astrocyte-benchmarks	No (default; token-only)	Raw results-*.json.gz runs, manifests, latest/.
astrocyte-benchmarks-public	Yes (r2.dev subdomain — see Step 3)	Derived trajectory/<bench>.json artifact for the docs site.

Use the same location hint (Automatic or a specific region) for both so cross-bucket copies stay cheap.

Step 2 — Note the Account ID

Top-right of the R2 page; this is R2_ACCOUNT_ID. Both buckets share it.

Step 3 — Enable public access on the public bucket only

Open astrocyte-benchmarks-public → Settings → Public access → R2.dev subdomain → Allow Access. Cloudflare returns a URL like:

https://pub-7a3f9b2c1d4e8f6a.r2.dev

That is R2_PUBLIC_URL. Files at trajectory/locomo.json become reachable at:

https://pub-7a3f9b2c1d4e8f6a.r2.dev/trajectory/locomo.json

Caveat — r2.dev is dev-tier. Cloudflare rate-limits the r2.dev subdomain and labels it “for development.” For Astrocyte’s docs traffic at current scale this is fine; the trajectory JSONs are small and read-only. The escape hatch when traffic outgrows it is to point a custom domain (e.g. bench.astrocyte.dev) at the public bucket and update R2_PUBLIC_URL — no code changes needed.

Do not enable public access on the private bucket. Run JSONs contain per-question detail and stay token-gated.

Step 4 — Configure CORS on the public bucket

The docs site fetches trajectory/<bench>.json from the browser cross-origin, so the public bucket needs CORS. Public bucket → Settings → CORS Policy:

[
  {
    "AllowedOrigins": ["*"],
    "AllowedMethods": ["GET", "HEAD"],
    "AllowedHeaders": ["*"],
    "MaxAgeSeconds": 3600
  }
]

AllowedOrigins: ["*"] is acceptable because the trajectory data is intentionally public. Tighten to the docs site’s stable origin once deployed.

Step 5 — Mint one API token scoped to both buckets

R2 page → Manage R2 API Tokens → Create API Token:

• Name: astrocyte-benchmarks-rw
• Permissions: Object Read & Write
• Specify bucket: Apply to specific buckets only → check both astrocyte-benchmarks and astrocyte-benchmarks-public.
• TTL: blank (or 1 year).

Copy the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key shown once — these are R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID and R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY. One token serves both buckets so the archive script doesn’t juggle credentials.

Step 6 — Store in Doppler

doppler secrets set R2_ACCOUNT_ID --config bench
doppler secrets set R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID --config bench
doppler secrets set R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY --config bench
doppler secrets set R2_BUCKET --config bench         # value: astrocyte-benchmarks
doppler secrets set R2_BUCKET_PUBLIC --config bench  # value: astrocyte-benchmarks-public
doppler secrets set R2_PUBLIC_URL --config bench     # value: https://pub-<hash>.r2.dev

Step 7 — Verify

doppler run --config bench -- env | grep ^R2_   # six values present
doppler run --config bench -- python -m scripts.archive_bench_results --selftest
curl -fsS "$(doppler secrets get R2_PUBLIC_URL --plain --config bench)/trajectory/locomo.json" | head -c 200

The curl returns 404 until the first run is archived; the goal is just to confirm the public URL resolves and CORS doesn’t reject the request shape.

Astrocyte uses the S3-compatible R2 API. aiobotocore (async boto3) is the dependency; region_name="auto" is the correct value for R2 (do not pass a real AWS region).

CI setup

The weekly benchmark workflow at .github/workflows/benchmarks.yml uses a Doppler service token scoped to the bench config so the same secret rotation flow applies. The CI run uploads results to R2 via the same R2_* secrets.

One-time setup in Doppler

Create a service token scoped to read-only for the bench config:

doppler configs tokens create benchmark-ci --config bench --plain
# Copy the token output

One-time setup in GitHub

Add the token as a repository secret:

1. GitHub → Settings → Secrets and variables → Actions → New repository secret
2. Name: DOPPLER_BENCHMARK_TOKEN
3. Value: the token from the Doppler command above

The workflow already reads secrets.DOPPLER_BENCHMARK_TOKEN — no other per-provider secrets are needed. The Doppler CLI step injects OPENAI_API_KEY, the four R2_* secrets, and any other bench secrets into the benchmark process’s environment.

Rotation

Rotate via Doppler:

# Revoke compromised token
doppler configs tokens revoke <token-slug>

# Issue replacement
doppler configs tokens create benchmark-ci --config bench --plain

Update the DOPPLER_BENCHMARK_TOKEN secret in GitHub and the next workflow run picks it up. No direct handling of OPENAI_API_KEY in CI logs or workflow files.

Budget hygiene

Real-provider runs consume LLM credit; keep them under control:

Scenario	Cost estimate
LoCoMo 200Q, gpt-4o-mini	~$0.60
LoCoMo 1986Q (full), gpt-4o-mini	~$5
LongMemEval 100Q (long contexts)	~$2
LongMemEval 500Q (full)	~$10

The default CI schedule is weekly Monday 06:00 UTC. max_questions defaults to 200 for that run — change via workflow_dispatch if you need a fuller sweep.

Why not just a GitHub secret?

A single OPENAI_API_KEY repository secret would work, but Doppler gives:

1. Single rotation story — one Doppler service token revocation cuts off both local developers and CI. No per-environment secret drift.
2. Audit trail — Doppler logs every secret fetch including CI workflow origin. GitHub Actions alone doesn’t surface secret-access metrics.
3. Environment parity — the same secrets flow into MCP deployments, Mystique, and benchmarks without each invention needing its own secret-loading path.
4. Project-scoped isolation — the Astrocyte project has its own Doppler environment, separate from other projects the user runs.

Troubleshooting

doppler: command not found — Install the CLI (brew install dopplerhq/cli/doppler on macOS) and run doppler login.

Error: no token provided — Local: run doppler setup to bind the project/config. CI: confirm DOPPLER_BENCHMARK_TOKEN is set as a repository secret and its slug matches the workflow env block.

Benchmark runs but LLM calls fail — Confirm the secret name is exactly OPENAI_API_KEY in the bench config (the benchmark config’s YAML does api_key: ${OPENAI_API_KEY} — case-sensitive). doppler run --config bench -- env | grep OPENAI should show the key in the injected environment.

Archive upload fails with InvalidAccessKeyId / SignatureDoesNotMatch — Re-issue the R2 API token (Cloudflare dashboard → R2 → Manage R2 API Tokens) and re-run doppler secrets set R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID / R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY. R2 tokens are bucket-scoped; if the token’s bucket doesn’t match R2_BUCKET, signing fails with the same error.

Archive upload fails with NoSuchBucket — Verify doppler secrets get R2_BUCKET --plain exactly equals astrocyte-benchmarks (case-sensitive; no s3:// prefix, no path suffix).