| name | scan-for-secrets |
| description | Pre-share scan for leaked secrets and privacy-sensitive content. Wraps simonw/scan-for-secrets for literal matching (with JSON/URL/HTML/backslash/unicode escape variants) and composes a ripgrep regex pass for shape-based leaks (other users' home paths, emails, IPv4, MAC, JWTs, API keys). Use when user says "scan for secrets", "check for leaked credentials", "pre-share scan", "redact home paths", "PII scan", "strip my username from transcripts", "scan logs before publishing", "check before sharing", "audit before commit", "find leaked API keys", "scan agent transcript". |
| metadata | {"author":"Fred Bliss","version":"0.1.1","last_verified":"2026-07-05T00:00:00.000Z"} |
| allowed-tools | Bash,Read |
scan-for-secrets
Scan files and directories before sharing. Catches literal secrets you name, privacy-sensitive identity literals pulled from your environment, and shape-based patterns a literal scan can't express.
Wraps simonw/scan-for-secrets (literal pass) and composes ripgrep (regex pass).
When to use
- Pre-publish audit of a repo you're about to make public
- Pre-share sweep of an agent transcript, log, or sample output
- Before pasting a file into chat, a blog post, or a support ticket
- CI gate on generated artifacts (optional; read-only mode)
Core principle
Literals for identities you can name, regex for shapes you can't.
- Your home path, username, git email, SSH keys — literal strings.
scan-for-secrets handles these natively, including all common escape variants.
- Other users' home paths, arbitrary emails in fixtures, API key shapes — you can't enumerate them. Regex pass with
ripgrep.
The skill composes both into one workflow; no modifications to simonw's tool.
Decision matrix
| Situation | Command | Notes |
|---|
| You know the specific secret(s) | uvx scan-for-secrets "$KEY" -d <path> | Direct passthrough |
| Pre-share sweep of your own leakage | Privacy mode (literal + regex) | See Process below |
| Audit a repo / log for any leak | Combined mode | Most thorough |
| Actually strip found secrets | Add -r to the literal pass | Prompts before rewriting |
| CI check (read-only) | Privacy or combined, no -r | Exit 1 fails the job |
Process
Command examples below assume you're invoking from the repo root of fb-claude-skills (or a repo where this plugin is installed). If invoked from elsewhere, substitute the install path.
Mode 1 — secrets only (you know what to scan for)
uvx scan-for-secrets "$OPENAI_API_KEY" "$ANTHROPIC_API_KEY" -d .
Positional args, piped stdin, or -c <config> all work. Exit 0 = clean, 1 = matches, 2 = no secrets provided. See uvx scan-for-secrets --help for the full surface.
Mode 2 — privacy sweep (auto-assembled from env + regex)
Two commands; run both. Paths assume you invoke from the repo root.
uvx scan-for-secrets -d <target> \
-c skills/scan-for-secrets/skills/scan-for-secrets/scripts/privacy-tokens.sh
bash skills/scan-for-secrets/skills/scan-for-secrets/scripts/regex-scan.sh -d <target>
Add --api-keys to pass B to also sweep common API-token shapes (OpenAI, Anthropic, GitHub, AWS, Google, JWT, Slack, PEM private keys).
If you want scan-for-secrets to pick up the privacy config without -c on every call, copy it once:
cp skills/scan-for-secrets/skills/scan-for-secrets/scripts/privacy-tokens.sh \
~/.scan-for-secrets.conf.sh
Then bare scan-for-secrets uses it by default.
Mode 3 — combined (privacy + named secrets + redact)
uvx scan-for-secrets "$KEY1" "$KEY2" \
-c skills/scan-for-secrets/skills/scan-for-secrets/scripts/privacy-tokens.sh \
-d <target> -r
bash skills/scan-for-secrets/skills/scan-for-secrets/scripts/regex-scan.sh -d <target> --api-keys
-r shows all literal matches first, then prompts Proceed? [y/N]. Declining exits 1 without rewriting. Accepting replaces every variant (including escape forms) with REDACTED in place.
Privacy token bundle
scripts/privacy-tokens.sh emits one literal per line. Defensive: missing tools fall through silently. Covers: $HOME, $USER, whoami, id -un, hostnames (short/FQDN/ComputerName/LocalHostName on macOS), git user.email/user.name/github.user, macOS dscl RealName, Linux GECOS full name, macOS Apple ID, gh/npm/pnpm/yarn/aws/gcloud identities if logged in, SSH public keys from ~/.ssh/id_*.pub.
Opt-in lines (commented) for hardware serial, machine-id, and IOPlatformUUID are in the script; uncomment only if you share raw system logs.
Rationale per token: see references/privacy_tokens.md.
Regex pattern bundle
scripts/regex-scan.sh wraps ripgrep. Core patterns (always on): macOS/Linux home paths, email, IPv4, MAC address, SSH key fingerprint. Opt-in --api-keys adds: OpenAI-style, Anthropic-style, GitHub tokens, AWS access keys, Google API keys, JWTs, Slack tokens, PEM private keys.
Flags: -d <dir> / -f <file> (repeatable), --api-keys, --no-default, --extra <patterns-file>.
Full pattern catalog + false-positive notes: see references/regex_patterns.md.
Redaction workflow
-r is only available on the literal pass (scan-for-secrets). The regex pass is read-only by design — auto-replacing pattern matches (e.g., stripping every email) risks destroying legitimate content. If you want to redact regex-matched content, either:
- Copy the matched strings into your secrets list and re-run the literal pass with
-r, or
- Use
sed / your editor with the matched lines as a manual review checklist.
Limits
- Regex false positives. IPv4 matches any four dotted numbers (version strings, build numbers). Email regex matches doc examples (
user@example.com). Review before acting. Tuning hints: references/regex_patterns.md.
- Literal pass skips binary files. Detected by null bytes in first 8KB.
- Skip dirs.
.git, .hg, .svn, node_modules, __pycache__, .venv, venv, plus .mypy_cache, .ruff_cache, .pytest_cache in the regex pass.
- Not a substitute for rotation. If a real secret appears anywhere (scan output, commit history, shared file), assume it's compromised and rotate it. Redaction only cleans the artifact in your hand.
References
