Named Credential
A metadata component that stores an external system's endpoint and auth details for reuse in Apex and Flow.
Definition
A named credential is a Salesforce metadata component that stores the endpoint URL and authentication details for an external system in one reusable record, so Apex callouts and Flow HTTP actions can reference the named credential instead of hardcoding URLs and secrets. It centralizes authentication (OAuth, basic auth, or certificate-based) and lets admins rotate credentials without touching code, which also keeps secrets out of Apex classes and version control. Named credentials deploy as metadata like any other component, but credential values themselves are excluded from metadata deployments for security and must be re-entered per org, which is a common source of "it worked in sandbox but not production" integration bugs. Legacy named credentials and the newer external credential model behave differently enough that migrating between them needs care. Our Salesforce DevOps guide covers integration patterns as part of the broader release process.
How it works in Serpent
Serpent deploys named credential metadata as part of a task's release, and flags when a target org's credential values still need manual entry after deployment, since those secrets never travel with the metadata. This keeps integration-dependent releases from silently breaking in a new org because a token wasn't reconfigured. Org comparison also surfaces named credential differences between environments, so drift is caught before it causes an integration failure in production. See org management in Serpent for how environment-specific configuration is tracked.
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