Initializer fails with ArgumentError: Missing `secret_key_base` for 'test_data' environment, set this string with `bin/rails credentials:edit`

[mdoel]

It seems that the test_data:install task wants to initialize the new test_data environment. If you are in a repo that has a config/credentials.yml.enc but you are unable to edit that with rails credentials:edit (i.e. because you don't have a config/master.key or haven't set RAILS_MASTER_KEY, the environment creation throws an exception.

[searls]

Thanks for the report @mdoel -- sorry for taking my time in looking into this. Looks like it's still an issue as of 49768a2.

To reproduce:

$ bin/rails credentials:edit
# save the file
$ mv config/master.key someplace/else
$ bin/rake test_data:install
$ RAILS_ENV=test_data bin/rails server

Will yield this error on each request:

2021-07-06 09:03:45 -0400 Rack app ("GET /" - (127.0.0.1)): #<ArgumentError: Missing `secret_key_base` for 'test_data' environment, set this string with `bin/rails credentials:edit`>

This doesn't happen to development, indicating that it's treated differently for some reason.

[searls]

Yeah, sure enough:

    def secret_key_base
      if Rails.env.development? || Rails.env.test?
        secrets.secret_key_base ||= generate_development_secret
      else
        validate_secret_key_base(
          ENV["SECRET_KEY_BASE"] || credentials.secret_key_base || secrets.secret_key_base
        )
      end
    end

[searls]

If we were to slam this lovely private-method call into config/environments/test_data.rb, it would work:

Rails.application.secrets.secret_key_base ||= Rails.application.send(:generate_development_secret)

The number of places in which Rails hardcodes Rails.env.development? || Rails.env.test? or similar is frustrating, given its support for arbitrarily-many environments (the undocumented working assumption appears to be that all non-development/test environments are production-like)