| name | scrub-pii |
| description | Pre-flight PII / sensitive-data scrub for content about to be posted to a public GitHub gist. Identifies IPs, hostnames, MACs, emails, tokens, secrets, and home-directory usernames; proposes redactions; confirms with the user before any public publish. Invoked automatically by claude-solution-gist and debug-writeup-gist when visibility=public; can also be run standalone. |
Scrub PII Before Public Publish
This skill runs before any public gist is created. For private gists it can be skipped (private gists are still on GitHub and indexable, but the bar is the user's call).
What to look for
Two passes — regex first (fast, catches the obvious), then a structured review pass (catches context-sensitive leaks).
Pass 1 — Regex
Flag every match. Don't auto-replace; surface them all and let the user decide per category.
| Category | Patterns / examples |
|---|
| IPv4 (private/public) | \b(?:\d{1,3}\.){3}\d{1,3}\b — but ignore 0.0.0.0, 127.0.0.1, 255.255.255.0, common docs ranges (192.0.2.*, 198.51.100.*, 203.0.113.*) |
| IPv6 | standard IPv6 patterns; ignore ::1 |
| MAC | \b(?:[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}[:-]){5}[0-9A-Fa-f]{2}\b |
| Emails | [\w.+-]+@[\w-]+\.[\w.-]+ |
| Hostnames (likely-private) | *.local, *.lan, *.home, *.internal, *.corp |
| Home-dir usernames | /home/<user>/, /Users/<user>/, /root/ (root is usually fine but flag for review) |
| API keys / tokens | sk-[A-Za-z0-9]{20,}, ghp_[A-Za-z0-9]{36}, github_pat_[A-Za-z0-9_]{82}, xox[baprs]-[A-Za-z0-9-]+ (Slack), AKIA[0-9A-Z]{16} (AWS), JWTs (eyJ[A-Za-z0-9_-]+\.eyJ[A-Za-z0-9_-]+\.[A-Za-z0-9_-]+), generic Bearer [A-Za-z0-9._-]+ |
| Passwords / secrets in env-style lines | `(?i)(password |
| SSH private keys | `-----BEGIN (OPENSSH |
| AWS account IDs | \b\d{12}\b in AWS-context lines |
Pass 2 — Structured review
After regex, re-read the document and look for:
- Hostnames that look custom (not in a public docs/RFC example set). E.g.
cloudpi.local, ops-vps-01, prod-db-eu.
- Project / org names the user may not want public.
- Filesystem layouts that fingerprint the user's setup (e.g.
~/Documents/Clients/<RealClient>/).
- Internal URLs — anything not public.
- Commit hashes / branch names referencing private repos.
- Real names / handles other than the gist author's intended attribution.
Output
Produce a redaction report before the gist is created:
=== PII / Sensitive Data Scan ===
🔴 BLOCKING (must redact or abort):
- SSH private key at line 42
🟡 LIKELY SENSITIVE (recommend redact):
- IPv4 10.0.0.42 at line 17 (private RFC1918 → recommend `10.0.0.X`)
- IPv4 91.123.45.67 at line 19 (public; could fingerprint host → recommend `<public-vps-ip>`)
- Hostname `daniel-desktop.local` at line 23 → recommend `<workstation>.local`
- Path `/home/daniel/repos/...` at line 31 → recommend `~/repos/...`
🟢 LOW RISK (review):
- Email `public@example.com` at line 5 — looks intentional?
Apply redactions? [Y / select-categories / abort]
Redaction conventions
When the user accepts a redaction, replace with a clearly-marked placeholder, not deletion:
- IPs →
<lan-ip> / <public-ip> / <vps-ip> (descriptive when possible)
- Hostnames →
<workstation> / <server> / <host>.local
- Paths → collapse to
~/... for home dirs
- Tokens / keys →
<REDACTED-TOKEN>
- Emails →
<email> or keep if it's the public author email
Markers help future readers understand what kind of value belonged there.
When to abort
Abort and refuse to publish (don't just warn) if:
- An SSH private key, GPG private key, or
.pem body is present.
- A live-looking API token is present and the user declines to redact.
- The user's
git remote -v output for a private repo is embedded.
Standalone use
When invoked directly (not as a pre-flight), run the same two passes against a file or pasted content and produce the same report. Don't modify the source unless asked.
