VA-003 Create Vault policies Practice Question
A company uses Vault's KV v2 secrets engine. A policy is needed to allow a service to only update existing secrets at path "secret/data/service/config", but not create new ones. Which capabilities should be included?
⚠ Common exam trap
Many exam-takers confuse 'write' with 'update' in Vault, not realizing that 'write' is a super-capability that includes both 'create' and 'update', while 'update' alone is the precise capability for modifying existing secrets without creation rights.
Answer choices
Why each option matters
Answer the question above first, then reveal the full breakdown to understand why each option is right or wrong.
Correct answer & explanation
✓
["update"]
In Vault's KV v2 secrets engine, the 'update' capability is specifically required to modify an existing secret at a given path without the ability to create a new one. The 'create' capability is needed only for initial creation, and 'read' is not required for the update operation itself. Since the policy must allow updating existing secrets but not creating new ones, only the 'update' capability is necessary.
Answer analysis
Option-by-option breakdown
For each option: why learners choose it and why it is or isn't the right answer here.
- ✗
["read", "update"]
Why it's wrong here
Adds read capability which is not required.
- ✗
["write"]
Why it's wrong here
'write' is not a standard Vault capability.
- ✓
["update"]
Why this is correct
Update allows modifying existing secrets without creating new ones.
- ✗
["create", "update"]
Why it's wrong here
Includes create, which would allow creating new secrets, violating the requirement.
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JA
Written by Johnson Ajibi, MSc IT Security
Senior Network & Security Engineer · founder of Courseiva
This VA-003 practice question is part of Courseiva's free HashiCorp certification practice question bank. Courseiva provides original exam-style practice questions with explanations, topic-based practice, mock exams, readiness tracking, and study analytics to help learners prepare for the VA-003 exam.