Overview
- Security firm Apiiro found 104,185 public .claude/settings.local.json files and reported that 1,122 of them contained about 1,379 distinct secrets.
- Apiiro’s scan, published after checks run November 1–3 and disclosed November 5, shows the file gets created when users pick “Yes, and don’t ask again” and often records the exact shell command including any pasted passwords or tokens.
- Anthropic’s docs add the settings file to a developer’s global .gitignore, but that machine‑level exclusion does not travel with a project and Claude Code can sometimes commit the file to a repository without the user stopping it.
- Exposed items include database passwords, API tokens, root SSH logins, Supabase service‑role keys, AWS keys and other provider tokens, and common secret scanners missed 215 compromised files because credentials were embedded inline.
- Teams are advised to search repository trees and histories for .claude/settings.local.json, audit forks, rotate any exposed keys immediately, add project‑level .gitignore entries, and stop pasting credentials into commands to prevent similar leaks.