secretleak 0.2.0

A CLI tool to detect leaked secrets in Git repositories

secretleak

A production-quality CLI tool to detect leaked secrets (API keys, tokens, private keys) in Git repositories.

Features

• Regex rules — 30+ built-in patterns covering AWS, GitHub, Stripe, Google, Slack, Twilio, SendGrid, npm, PyPI, private keys, connection strings, and more
• Shannon entropy heuristic — catches high-entropy strings that don't match a known pattern
• Three scan modes — working tree, staged diff (git diff --staged), commit range
• Three output formats — Rich console table, JSON report, SARIF 2.1.0 (GitHub Code Scanning compatible)
• False-positive suppression — allowlist patterns, ignore paths, baseline file
• Git hook — auto-generates a pre-commit hook that blocks commits on findings
• Secret masking — secrets are never printed or stored in full (prefix/suffix only)

Installation

From PyPI

pip install secretleak

From source (development)

git clone https://github.com/Mo-Shakib/secretleak.git
cd secretleak
pip install -e ".[dev]"

---

Using secretleak in Another Project

Option 1 — Install globally and scan manually

Install once, then point it at any repo:

pip install secretleak
secretleak scan /path/to/your-project

Option 2 — Add as a dev dependency

In your project's pyproject.toml:

[project.optional-dependencies]
dev = [
    "secretleak",
]

Then install and scan:

pip install -e ".[dev]"
secretleak scan .

Or reference a local checkout before it is published to PyPI:

dev = [
    "secretleak @ file:///path/to/secretleak",
]

Option 3 — Pre-commit hook (recommended for teams)

Run once inside the target repo. Every developer on the team is protected automatically — no changes to their workflow required.

cd /path/to/your-project
secretleak install-hook .

From that point on, every git commit scans the staged files and blocks if secrets are found:

[secretleak] Scanning staged files for secrets...
🔴 CRITICAL  AWS Access Key ID — config.py:12 — AKIA****MPLE

[secretleak] !! Commit BLOCKED: secrets detected in staged files.

Remove the hook at any time:

secretleak uninstall-hook .

Option 4 — GitHub Actions (CI/CD)

Create .github/workflows/secret-scan.yml in your project:

name: Secret Scan

on: [push, pull_request]

jobs:
  scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      security-events: write
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Scan for secrets
        run: |
          pip install secretleak
          secretleak scan . --format sarif --output results.sarif --no-fail

      - name: Upload to GitHub Code Scanning
        uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
        with:
          sarif_file: results.sarif

Findings appear in your repo's Security → Code Scanning tab with file locations and line numbers.

Option 5 — Suppress false positives in your project

cd /path/to/your-project

# 1. Generate a baseline to silence already-known findings
secretleak generate-baseline .
git add .secretleak-baseline.json
git commit -m "chore: add secretleak baseline"

# 2. Add project-specific config
cat > .secretleak.yaml << 'EOF'
allowlist:
  patterns:
    - '^EXAMPLE_'        # placeholder values in docs
    - 'your-key-here'    # obvious dummy values
  paths:
    - tests/fixtures/**  # test data with fake secrets
    - docs/**
baseline_file: .secretleak-baseline.json
EOF

Future scans will skip anything in the baseline and anything matching the allowlist.

---

Quick reference

Goal	Command
Scan a project	secretleak scan /path/to/project
Scan staged files only	secretleak scan --staged
Scan a commit range	secretleak scan --commit-range HEAD~10..HEAD
Block commits automatically	secretleak install-hook . (run once)
CI pipeline (SARIF)	secretleak scan . --format sarif --no-fail
JSON report	secretleak scan . --format json -o report.json
Suppress known findings	secretleak generate-baseline .
List active rules	secretleak rules

---

Quick Start

# Scan current directory
secretleak scan .

# Scan only staged files (before committing)
secretleak scan --staged

# Scan a commit range
secretleak scan --commit-range HEAD~10..HEAD

# JSON output
secretleak scan . --format json --output report.json

# SARIF output (GitHub Code Scanning)
secretleak scan . --format sarif --output results.sarif

# Install pre-commit hook
secretleak install-hook .

# Generate baseline to suppress existing findings
secretleak generate-baseline .

# List active rules
secretleak rules

Configuration

Create .secretleak.yaml in your repo root:

# Override entropy settings
entropy:
  enabled: true
  threshold: 4.5
  min_length: 20

# Add custom rules
rules:
  - id: my-internal-token
    name: Internal Service Token
    pattern: 'myapp_[a-z0-9]{32}'
    severity: high
    description: Internal service authentication token

# Allowlist – suppress known false positives
allowlist:
  patterns:
    - '^EXAMPLE'          # example values in docs
    - 'placeholder'        # obvious placeholders
  paths:
    - tests/fixtures/**   # test data
    - '**/*.md'           # documentation

# Additional paths to skip
ignore_paths:
  - vendor/**
  - node_modules/**

# Point at a baseline file
baseline_file: .secretleak-baseline.json

False Positive Handling

Allowlist patterns

allowlist:
  patterns:
    - '^fake_'
    - 'example\.com'

Baseline suppression

Generate a baseline from the current state of your repo, commit it, and future scans will ignore already-known findings:

secretleak generate-baseline .
git add .secretleak-baseline.json
git commit -m "chore: add secretleak baseline"

Ignore paths

ignore_paths:
  - docs/**
  - tests/fixtures/**
  - '**/*.lock'

CI Integration

# .github/workflows/secret-scan.yml
- name: Scan for secrets
  run: |
    pip install secretleak
    secretleak scan . --format sarif --output results.sarif --no-fail

- name: Upload SARIF
  uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
  with:
    sarif_file: results.sarif

Git Hook

# Install
secretleak install-hook .

# Force-overwrite an existing hook
secretleak install-hook . --force

# Uninstall
secretleak uninstall-hook .

The hook runs secretleak scan --staged and blocks the commit if any secrets are found.

Output Formats

Console (default)

Rich table with severity icons, file paths, line numbers, and masked secrets.

JSON

{
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "generated_at": "2026-03-09T12:00:00Z",
  "scan_mode": "working_tree",
  "summary": { "total": 2, "critical": 1, "high": 1 },
  "findings": [
    {
      "fingerprint": "a3b4c5d6e7f8a1b2",
      "rule_id": "aws-access-key-id",
      "severity": "critical",
      "file_path": "config.py",
      "line_number": 12,
      "secret_masked": "AKIA****MPLE",
      ...
    }
  ]
}

SARIF 2.1.0

Compatible with GitHub Code Scanning. Upload via github/codeql-action/upload-sarif.

Exit Codes

Code	Meaning
0	No findings
1	Findings detected (--no-fail to suppress)
2	Error (bad args, git failure, config error)

Development

# Install with dev dependencies
pip install -e ".[dev]"

# Run tests
pytest

# Run tests with coverage
pytest --cov=secretleak --cov-report=term-missing

# Lint
ruff check src/ tests/
ruff format src/ tests/

# Type check
mypy src/

Security Notes

• Secrets are never stored or logged in full. Only a masked form (prefix****suffix) appears in output.
• The JSON and SARIF outputs are safe to store and share — they contain only masked values.
• The baseline file contains only fingerprints (SHA-256 hashes), not secret values.