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Guided answer
Patent or trade secret?
One honest question decides most of this.
Secrecy is not available. File.
A trade secret protects only what nobody can see. Once a feature is visible in the product, secrecy is a hope rather than a right - and a competitor who works it out independently owes you nothing.
- File before any public disclosure.
- If a competitor patents it first, your prior secret use is not a general defence.
- Consider design registration in parallel if the appearance matters.
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This is educational guidance, not personalised legal advice. It cannot see your documents, your dates or the prior art, and those are usually what decide the answer. Use it to understand the question, then take advice on your own facts.
Not sure whether this applies to your invention?
The honest answer usually needs someone to look at your actual disclosure, your timeline and the prior art. That is a conversation, not an article.