Azure devOps deployment release setup - azure-devops

Question

If the connection string is setup as a secret variable in the release pipeline.
Is there any way or any one to view the secret variable? If yes, how could we do it?

Answer 1

I write a powershell demo in the YAML file for you(Based on Daniel's idea.), please notice on the pipeline you will be unable to output the value because all of the same value will be captured by the pipeline and all of them will be covered by "***".
trigger:
- none
pool:
vmImage: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- task: PowerShell#2
inputs:
targetType: 'inline'
script: |
Write-Host $(not_secure)
Write-Host $(secure)
#convert string to based64 string:
$secret = "$(secure)"
$secret = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($secret))
Write-Host $secret
Write-Host "value2" #Whenever the pipeline capture the same value of the secured secret, the pipeline will output '***'. So doing any tricks inside the pipeline can't make the pipeline output this value
Whenever the pipeline capture the same value of the secured secret,
the pipeline will output '***'. So doing any tricks inside the
pipeline can't make the pipeline output this value.
My pipeline output:
My variables:
get_secret_of_pipeline.ps1(run this on your machine.)
$secret = "dmFsdWUy"
$secret = [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($secret))
Write-Host $secret
Successfully get the value of secret: