Refer to the exhibit.

Set the Base64 encoded version of the API key as MER_API_KEY in the code and Base64 decode before using in the header.

Set an OS environment variable for MER_API_KEY to the API key during running the code and longer set MER_API_KEY within the code.

Create a secret for the API key, set MER_API_KEY using the value from the secret in the Pod. and no longer set MER_API_KEY within the code.

Leverage an external secret vault to retrieve MER_API_KEY and embed the vault key as a new variable before running the code.