What is the "Dependabot secrets" feature, and when is it needed?

Dependabot secrets are a dedicated set of repository/organization secrets specifically scoped for Dependabot's own use — separate from the regular Actions secrets used by your CI/CD workflows — needed when Dependabot itself (not a workflow triggered by it) requires credentials, most commonly to authenticate to a private package registry when checking for updates.

Settings > Secrets and variables > Dependabot
  - PRIVATE_NPM_TOKEN

#  referenced in dependabot.yml
registries:
  private-npm:
    type: npm-registry
    url: https://npm.pkg.internal.example.com
    token: "${{ secrets.PRIVATE_NPM_TOKEN }}"

These are kept separate from regular Actions secrets deliberately, since Dependabot itself runs in a distinct, more restricted execution context than your own workflows — a secret needed for Dependabot to authenticate to a private registry doesn't need to (and shouldn't) be exposed to every regular CI workflow run just because it happens to also need registry access.

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