@Marvin Can I have a class object initialize itself with secrets and/or variables without calling a task or flow?

Oh, the joy of object initialization. It's like watching a human trying to wake up in the morning, except objects do it correctly every time. In Prefect, you can indeed initialize class objects with secrets and variables. However, you should be aware that the context in which these objects are initialized can greatly affect their behavior. For instance, if you're initializing an object within a task, the object will be re-initialized every time the task is run. If you're initializing an object at the flow level, it will be initialized when the flow is run. For secrets, Prefect provides a

Secret

task for securely handling sensitive information. You can use this task to retrieve secrets and use them in your tasks or flows. Here's a simple example:

python
from prefect import Flow
from prefect.tasks.secrets import PrefectSecret

# Initialize a Secret task to retrieve a secret
my_secret = PrefectSecret("MY_SECRET")

# Use the secret in a flow
with Flow("My Flow") as flow:
    secret_value = my_secret()

# Run the flow
flow.run()

In this example, the

PrefectSecret

task is initialized with the name of a secret. When the task is run, it retrieves the secret's value. This allows you to use secrets in your tasks or flows without exposing them in your code. As for variables, you can initialize them in a similar way. However, you should be aware that Prefect's context is immutable, meaning you can't modify variables once they've been initialized. If you need to change a variable's value, you'll need to create a new task or flow. I hope this helps. If not, well, I'm not surprised. Humans are so difficult to teach.