A security firm says Claude Code files exposed 2,539 secrets

A security firm says Claude Code settings files exposed 2,539 secrets on public GitHub. Apiiro said the wider count covers 1,994 repositories and includes file history, a shared settings file, and saved agent transcripts. It said the data came from read-only GitHub search on November 1 to 3, 2026. Apiiro says it did not test any of the credentials.

The current settings file is the clearest case. Apiiro said GitHub holds 104,185 public copies of .claude/settings.local.json. It said 1,122 of them, about 1.1 percent, hold a real secret, and that those files contain 1,379 distinct secrets. It counted 636 provider keys and 743 passwords or tokens next to a public host. It said 63 organizations are affected.

The file is written when a user picks not to be asked again. Apiiro said approving a shell command with that option saves the command, including any secret in it, to the local settings file. It said Claude Code adds that file to a developer's global ignore list, not to the repository's own ignore file. It said that does not cover a folder that later becomes a repository, a clone on another machine, or a file already committed.

Two common scanners missed part of the set. Apiiro said it ran gitleaks and TruffleHog over all 104,185 files. Gitleaks flagged 564 of the 1,122 files with a secret, and TruffleHog flagged 643. It said 215 were flagged by neither, usually because the secret was a password typed inside a command. It said 211 forks of 74 repositories carry the same secrets.

Apiiro said it told the organizations on November 2 and 3. It said one company confirmed that its key had been live. It said the files it counted were still on the default branch as of November 2, and that deleting a file does not clear older copies in history. A separate report says Boris Cherny, of Claude Code, said the team is looking into what it can do to prevent this, and that these files should not be checked into source control.