Connecting credentials: PowerShell Universal and Devolutions Server

PowerShell Universal (PSU) gives IT teams a practical way to turn scripts into automation, APIs, dashboards, scheduled jobs, and operational tooling. Devolutions Server (DVLS) provides those same teams with a centralized place to manage credentials, with access control and auditing. Connecting the two gives teams a practical way to centralize credential management while keeping automation workflows native to PowerShell Universal.

Since PSU joined Devolutions, the goal has been straightforward: make secure automation easier to adopt without changing how PowerShell teams already work. A good example is the recently added read-only Microsoft.PowerShell.SecretManagement vault extension for DVLS. PSU may retrieve DVLS Credential entries through the built-in SecretManagement extension PSU already supports.

Connecting PowerShell Universal and Devolutions Server

Automation needs secrets, but scaling automation often creates fragmented credential management across scripts, schedulers, and infrastructure tooling.

In practice, fragmentation creeps in quickly: admins use one store, automation uses another, and you end up with different access rules, different rotation processes, and no single system of record. If DVLS is already your credential authority, PSU shouldn’t need to become yet another place to duplicate and manage secrets.

This integration keeps the ownership model clear while staying native to how PSU works:

• DVLS stays the system of record for credentials, access control, and auditing.
• PSU consumes credentials through SecretManagement, using a standard vault interface it already supports.
• Read-only for now: PSU can retrieve DVLS Credential entries, while creation/rotation stays in DVLS.

How it works and how to deploy

Under the hood, the provider authenticates to DVLS with an application identity, resolves the target vault (via VaultId), fetches Credential entries, and returns them to PowerShell as a standard PSCredential.

A non-integrated environment is required for DVLS SecretManagement, as it uses Run As credentials. For example, the PowerShell 7.x environment under Settings > Environments in PSU settings.

Deployment in PSU can be kept simple:

1. Install the module into PSU’s repository modules folder.
2. Register the vault in PSU startup (.universal\vaults.ps1).
   Once configured, PSU jobs, APIs, and dashboards can retrieve credentials directly from DVLS at runtime through the native SecretManagement workflow.

Import-Module Microsoft.PowerShell.SecretManagement -ErrorAction Stop
Import-Module SecretManagement.DevolutionsServer -ErrorAction Stop

$registerParams = @{
	Name           = 'DVLS'
	ModuleName     = 'SecretManagement.DevolutionsServer'
	VaultParameters = @{
		ServerUrl = '<https://dvls.example.com>'
		AppKey    = '<DVLSAppKey>'
		AppSecret = '<DVLSAppSecret>'
		VaultId   = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'
	}
}

Register-SecretVault @registerParams

3. Import secrets in the PSU UI as secret variables from the DVLS vault, after storing the Application Identity values in the built-in Database vault and referencing from the $Secret scope.

DVLS permissions: Get-Secret requires the View password permission. Depending on the entry, you may also need View sensitive information.

Where are we taking this

With this integration in place, teams can already:

• Centralize credential management in Devolutions Server while using PSU to run automation.
• Build cleaner, safer automation by resolving credentials at runtime instead of embedding secrets.
• Extend the same integration pattern across additional Devolutions ecosystem workflows.

Get started with PSU and DVLS

If you already use Devolutions Server, you can start centralizing credential access in PowerShell Universal using the native SecretManagement integration today.

Download the free Developer edition of PowerShell Universal and connect it to your Devolutions Account to start building secure automation workflows without duplicating secrets across tools.

• Run jobs and scripts with centrally managed credentials
• Resolve secrets dynamically in APIs and dashboards
• Keep credential governance inside Devolutions Server

Download PowerShell Universal today and get started in minutes.