Repair Config Secret Shadowing, Precedence & Fallback Bugs

The likely issue is a contract mismatch around configuration secrets, environment injection, secret managers, precedence, empty/null semantics, stale cached values, development fallbacks, rotation overlap, startup validation, redaction, and fail-open behavior. I would first define the invariant: Sensitive configuration must resolve from one explicit precedence chain; missing, empty, stale, or unauthorized secret sources must fail closed rather than silently falling back to weaker defaults. Then I would trace the smallest owning boundary, apply or propose a bounded repair/review step, and add deterministic normal, boundary, failure and replay tests. The workflow preserves existing authorization, privacy, security policy, public interfaces, user-visible behavior, and documented operational ownership. If repository/workspace files are available, findings can be mapped to exact paths and focused local validation; with partial evidence, the result stays an explicit diagnosis/evidence map with assumptions and no invented execution claims.