I'm very grateful for 2 excellent responses. I've coded toward both haukex's and soonix's suggestions, and I haven't completely disentangled ideas that are still crowding out the good ones here. I think I can lay out what I've done, state a better specification, and outline the things that cause trouble.

I looked also at config1.pm and realized that my claim that I only had sensitive values in one file per workspace was false. My new specification for the copy to the temp directory is that any file that matches "config", then a number, a dot, and a "pm" shall not be copied. Meanwhile, I have a created a template file, config3.tmpl, that is of the form it needs to be less the definition of the hash, which is to be templated in. I don't see why Text::Template wouldn't be fine. The longer arc of my question is how to both to populate and depopulate such hashes. What makes it very difficult is that we seem to be acting on perl syntax itself.

If we look haukex's output, the hash begins

$CONFIG = {
            my_github => {
[download]

, yet if we're to imitate the syntax in my source it begins:

our %config = (
     my_sftp =>  {
[download]

I'm more than a little confused about what seem to be competing definitions of a hash.

$ cat config3.tmpl
package config3;
use Exporter    qw(import);
our @EXPORT =    qw(%config);
{$config_hash}
1;

----------
$ cat util2.pm
package utils2;
require Exporter;

use utils1;

our @ISA = qw(Exporter);
our @EXPORT = qw( redact make_ini);

sub redact{
use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.010;
use Path::Tiny;

my $file = shift;
#use $file;  resulted in error
use config2;


my $sub_hash = "my_github";
my $email = $config{$sub_hash}->{'email'};
my $password = $config{$sub_hash}->{'password'};

my $tempdir = Path::Tiny->tempdir('backup_XXXXXX');
say "temp dir is $tempdir"; 

my $scratch_file = $tempdir->child('batch_01', '1.manifest.txt')->touc
+hpath;
say "scratch_file is $scratch_file";
my $parent = $scratch_file->parent;
say "parent is $parent";
 

chdir $tempdir unless $tempdir->subsumes(Path::Tiny->cwd);
system("pwd");


use Data::Dumper;
print Dumper \%config;
my $b = "dummy";
return $b;
}

sub make_ini{
use strict;
use warnings;
use 5.010;
use Path::Tiny;

my $file = shift;
use config2;
use Config::Tiny;
use Data::Dumper;


my $path = shift;
say "path is $path";

say "is the stuff here?";
print Dumper \%config;

$config->write( $path, 'utf8' ); #this line draws error
chdir "/home/bob/Documents";
system("cat *.ini");

my $b = "dummy";
return $b;
}

1;
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What I tried to do was extend what I have now to create a Config::Tiny ini file. I think the install went well, and judging by how quickly it went, it truly seems tiny:

All tests successful.
Files=5, Tests=49,  3 wallclock secs ( 0.06 usr  0.01 sys +  0.45 cusr
+  0.10 csys =  0.62 CPU)
Result: PASS
  RSAVAGE/Config-Tiny-2.23.tgz
  /usr/bin/make test -- OK
Running make install
Manifying 1 pod document
Installing /usr/local/share/perl/5.26.1/Config/Tiny.pm
Installing /usr/local/man/man3/Config::Tiny.3pm
Appending installation info to /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.
+26.1/perllocal.pod
  RSAVAGE/Config-Tiny-2.23.tgz
  /usr/bin/make install  -- OK

cpan[2]> q
Terminal does not support GetHistory.
Lockfile removed.
$ man Config::Tiny 
$ ./1.redact.pl 
Variable "$config" is not imported at template_stuff/utils2.pm line 61
+.
Global symbol "$config" requires explicit package name (did you forget
+ to declare "my $config"?) at template_stuff/utils2.pm line 61.
Compilation failed in require at ./1.redact.pl line 6.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at ./1.redact.pl line 6.
[download]

$ cat config2.pm 
package config2;
use Exporter    qw(import);
our @EXPORT =    qw(%config);
our %config = (
     my_sftp =>  {
           domain   =>  '',
           username =>  '',
           password =>  '',
          },
     my_github =>  {
        
           email    =>  '',
           password =>  '',
          },
     );
1;
$
[download]

I don't seem to be sharing is the "our" on the definition of "our %config". Why is my syntax on the config hash clashing with that provided by man Config::Tiny and haukex?