Claude Code Exposes 1,100 Secret-Filled Files on GitHub Through Settings Oversight
Updated
Updated · Ars Technica · Nov 9
Claude Code Exposes 1,100 Secret-Filled Files on GitHub Through Settings Oversight
3 articles · Updated · Ars Technica · Nov 9
Summary
Apiiro found more than 100,000 Claude Code settings files uploaded to public GitHub repositories, with about 1,100 files from 63 organizations containing exposed API tokens, database passwords, private keys or root logins.
The leak comes from Claude Code’s “Yes, and don’t ask again” approval flow, which can write full shell commands — including embedded secrets — into .claude/settings.local.json on a user’s machine.
Anthropic documents that file in a global .gitignore, but the protection does not carry to each repository, so cloned projects or folders later turned into repos can upload it accidentally.
Apiiro said Claude Code itself sometimes commits changes to the settings file without user input, and removed secrets can still survive in public forks of the original repository.