title: Chef: How to test that a node attribute is not stored on Chef Server?
body: <p>After some chef zero runs (which save the node state as local .json files) I was dismayed to find this in the node files:
  <code>
      ...
      "ssmtp": {
        "auth_username": "secret user name",
        "auth_password": "even-more-secret password"
      }
  </code>
  The same runs on Chef Server would save the node data on the server. That's is a problem of course, and I'll have to replace credentials, modify the recipes, etc.  I am still investigating what caused this in the first place but my question is:</p>
  
  <p><strong>How I can create an rspec/chefspec test for a recipe to verify that a particular node attribute is NOT saved persistently in the node's .json file or on Chef Server?</strong></p>
  
  <p>I'd like to add this to my specs to make sure it never happens again.</p>
  
  <h2>Epilogue</h2>
  
  <p><strong>The big lesson here is that anything finding its way into any node attribute winds up being saved in the node object representation.</strong></p>