#!/usr/bin/env bash # Secret gate: block any commit whose staged diff contains live-secret shapes or # credential assignments. This repo IS the deployment and every workstation # pulls it, so a committed secret is instantly in every agent's context window # on the fleet. Deliberate override: ALLOW_SECRETS=1 git commit ... # # Two rules, deliberately different in scope: # # 1. Token SHAPES are scanned across the ENTIRE staged diff, whatever the file # type. The first version of this gate whitelisted extensions # (*.md *.yml *.yaml *.json *.toml *.sh *.ts *.js), so a `postgres.env`, a # `.container` quadlet, an `.ini`, or an extension-less dotfile — exactly # the shapes the dotfiles tier is made of — was never read at all. # 2. Credential ASSIGNMENTS (PASSWORD=…, secret_key: …) are scanned only in # non-prose files. The auto-learned memory tier is prose ABOUT credentials, # and a gate that fires there gets overridden until it means nothing; the # 2026-10-20 audit measured 7 such prose hits on the tracked tree. Markdown # keeps shape detection only, which is what it had before. # # Bcrypt hashes and Basic-auth headers joined the shape list on 2026-10-20 # (issue #40) after a live Caddy basicauth hash plus its plaintext password — # and the Pi-hole internal password — were found in a tracked memory file. set -uo pipefail shapes='sk-[A-Za-z0-9]{18,}|ghp_[A-Za-z0-9]{36}|github_pat_[A-Za-z0-9_]{22,}|glpat-[A-Za-z0-9_-]{20}|xox[baprs]-[A-Za-z0-9-]{10,}|AKIA[A-Z0-9]{16}|ASIA[A-Z0-9]{16}|BEGIN [A-Z ]*PRIVATE KEY|aes_[A-Za-z0-9/+]{40}|eyJ[A-Za-z0-9_-]{20,}\.ey|\$2[aby]\$[0-9]{2}\$[./A-Za-z0-9]{20,}|Authorization:[[:space:]]*[Bb]asic[[:space:]]+[A-Za-z0-9+/=]{24,}' # `newpass1234`, `secret_key: "rotated-value"` — an assignment with a literal # value. `$VAR`, `${VAULT}`, and empty values cannot match. assign='[A-Za-z0-9_]*(PASSW|SECRET|TOKEN|API_?KEY|ACCESS_KEY|PRIVATE_KEY|CREDENTIAL)[A-Za-z0-9_]*[[:space:]]*[:=][[:space:]]*["'"'"']?[A-Za-z0-9/+._@-]{8,}' placeholders='changeme|change[-_]|placeholder|redacted|example|sample|dummy|nokey|no[-_]key|not[-_]needed|your[-_]|localhost|xxxx|yyyy|\$\{|<[a-z]|\*\*\*|%s|null|false|true' # Exemptions: a variable naming a location (`…_FILE=`, `…_PATH=`) or a value # that is a filesystem path is a pointer, not a credential. Flagging those is # how a gate gets permanently overridden. assign_exempt='(_FILE|_PATH|_DIR|_URL|_ENDPOINT|_SOCKET)[[:space:]]*[:=]|[:=][[:space:]]*["'"'"']?(/|\.\./)' # Fail closed: a gate that cannot read the staged diff must not report success. # # `-z`, and the list lives in a file. Two traps decide this: git quotes any path it cannot print # as UTF-8 (core.quotePath is on by default), and a quoted name handed back to # `git diff -- ` matches nothing — the file is skipped, and a skipped file used to be a # silent pass. Command substitution cannot hold the list either, because $() deletes NUL bytes, # so the names go to a temp file and the loop reads them with a NUL delimiter. TMPD=$(mktemp -d) || TMPD="" if [ -z "$TMPD" ]; then echo "SECRET GATE: cannot create a temp dir — refusing to commit." >&2 [ -n "${ALLOW_SECRETS:-}" ] && exit 0 exit 1 fi trap 'rm -rf "$TMPD"' EXIT if ! git diff --cached --diff-filter=ACM --name-only -z > "$TMPD/files" 2> "$TMPD/err"; then { echo "SECRET GATE: cannot read the staged diff — refusing to commit." sed 's/^/ /' "$TMPD/err" echo "Override deliberately: ALLOW_SECRETS=1 git commit ..." } >&2 [ -n "${ALLOW_SECRETS:-}" ] && exit 0 exit 1 fi # git's stderr stays out of the name list on purpose: a `warning:` line mistaken for a path # becomes a file that "cannot be read", which is how a gate starts skipping the real ones. [ -s "$TMPD/files" ] || exit 0 report="" exempt="" count=0 while IFS= read -r -d '' f; do [ -z "$f" ] && continue # Self-exemption, deliberately an exact filename list and not `tests/`: the # gate's fixtures must contain credential-shaped strings or there is nothing to # test against, and this hook documents the shapes it looks for. A secret parked # in any other test file is still caught. case "$f" in .githooks/pre-commit|tests/secret-gate.bats) exempt="$exempt $f"; continue ;; esac diff=$(git diff --cached -U0 -- "$f") [ -z "$diff" ] && continue # Only ADDED lines can leak. Matching removals too blocks the very commit that # deletes a credential — which is exactly what happened on 2026-10-20, when the # gate refused the redaction of the password it exists to catch. added=$(printf '%s\n' "$diff" | grep -E '^\+' | grep -vE '^\+\+\+' | sed 's/^+//' || true) [ -z "$added" ] && continue # Shape hits are judged on the MATCHED TOKEN, not on the whole line. Documentation about # credentials quotes vendor placeholders — AWS publishes an all-zeros access-key id that ends # in EXAMPLE for exactly this purpose — and # a gate that blocks prose over an inert example gets worked around until it means nothing: # the live-sync heartbeat failed three ticks on 2026-10-21 because a managed skill page quotes # exactly that id. A line is exempted only when EVERY shape on it is inert, so one live token # sharing the file with a documented fake still blocks. hits=$(printf '%s\n' "$added" | while IFS= read -r line; do live=0 while IFS= read -r m; do # The shape regexes carry fixed quantifiers, so the match they return is TRUNCATED: # `AKIA` + exactly 16 characters stops inside the word EXAMPLE and the placeholder # disappears from what is judged. Judge the match plus what follows it instead. ctx=$(printf '%s' "$line" | awk -v m="$m" '{ i = index($0, m); print (i > 0 ? substr($0, i, length(m) + 8) : m) }') printf '%s' "$ctx" | grep -Eiq 'EXAMPLE|X{4,}|Y{4,}|Z{4,}|_{4,}|REDACTED|CHANGEME|PLACEHOLDER' || live=1 done < <(printf '%s\n' "$line" | grep -Eio "$shapes" || true) [ "$live" = 1 ] && printf '%s\n' "$line" done) if [ "${f##*.}" != "md" ]; then # The placeholder filter reads the VALUE, never the whole line. A trailing comment that # says `# example` says nothing about the token the same line assigns; scoping the filter # to what follows the separator is what keeps `API_TOKEN= # placeholder` a block. assigns=$(printf '%s\n' "$added" | grep -Ei "$assign" | grep -Ev "$assign_exempt" \ | while IFS= read -r line; do # The judged value is the assigned token alone: it ends at whitespace or `#`, so a # trailing comment cannot vouch for it. Truncating a quoted value early only ever errs # toward blocking, which is the safe direction for a gate that can be overridden. value=${line#*[:=]} value=${value#"${value%%[![:space:]]*}"} value=${value%%[[:space:]]*} value=${value%%#*} printf '%s\n' "$value" | grep -Eiq "$placeholders" && continue printf '%s\n' "$line" done) hits=$(printf '%s\n%s\n' "$hits" "$assigns" | sed '/^[[:space:]]*$/d') fi if [ -n "$hits" ]; then n=$(printf '%s\n' "$hits" | wc -l) count=$((count + n)) report+=" $f"$'\n'"$(printf '%s\n' "$hits" | cut -c1-100 | sed 's/^/ /')"$'\n' fi done < "$TMPD/files" # Say so out loud: an exemption that prints nothing is how a carve-out becomes # invisible, and invisible is the property a secret wants. if [ -n "$exempt" ]; then printf 'secret-gate: self-test fixtures exempt:%s\n' "$exempt" >&2 fi if [ -n "${ALLOW_SECRETS:-}" ]; then [ -n "$report" ] && printf 'secret-gate: ALLOW_SECRETS set, allowing %s secret-shaped string(s) through.\n' "$count" exit 0 fi if [ -n "$report" ]; then { echo "SECRET GATE: staged diff contains $count secret-shaped string(s):" printf '%s\n' "$report" echo "Fix it, or override deliberately: ALLOW_SECRETS=1 git commit ..." echo "A credential that reaches a tracked file is already in history on every" echo "machine that pulls this repo — deleting it later does not un-leak it." } >&2 exit 1 fi exit 0