chef-vault and default recipe being invoked when only installing the forwarder

[ghost]

🗣️ Foreword

Thank for taking the time to fill this bug report fully. Without it we may not be able to fix the bug, and the issue may be closed without resolution.

👻 Brief Description

Installing the forwarder only has a dependency on the Chef Vault component

🥞 Cookbook version

9.2.1

👩‍🍳 Chef-Infra Version

16.2

🎩 Platform details

Ubuntu 16/18 in AWS EC2

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

add include_recipe 'chef-splunk::forwarder' and trigger a run
observe the following:

  Recipe Compile Error in /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/foo/recipes/default.rb
  ================================================================================

  ArgumentError
  -------------
  No secret specified and no secret found at /etc/chef/encrypted_data_bag_secret

  Cookbook Trace: (most recent call first)
  ----------------------------------------
    /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/chef-splunk/recipes/default.rb:22:in `from_file'
    /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/chef-splunk/recipes/setup_auth.rb:28:in `from_file'
    /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/chef-splunk/recipes/service.rb:50:in `from_file'
    /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/chef-splunk/recipes/install_forwarder.rb:46:in `from_file'
    /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/role_job/recipes/default.rb:10:in `from_file'

  Relevant File Content:
  ----------------------
  /var/chef/cache/cookbooks/chef-splunk/recipes/default.rb:

   15:  # distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
   16:  # WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
   17:  # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
   18:  # limitations under the License.
   19:  #
   20:  # We can rely on loading the chef_vault_item here into the run_state so other
   21:  # recipes don't have to keep going back to the chef server to access the vault/data bag item
   22>> vault_item = chef_vault_item(node['splunk']['data_bag'], "splunk_#{node.chef_environment}")
   23:  node.run_state['splunk_auth_info'] = splunk_auth(vault_item['auth'])
   24:  node.run_state['splunk_secret'] = vault_item['secret']
   25:
   26:  include_recipe 'ec2-tags-ohai-plugin'
   27:
   28:  if server?
   29:    include_recipe 'chef-splunk::server'
   30:  else
   31:    include_recipe 'chef-splunk::client'

🚓 Expected behavior

The forawrder is installed without the need to fetch this.

➕ Additional context

The forwarder installed by itself requires no sensitive data so why is this data bag necessary?