The Hidden Claude Code File Exposing Developer Credentials

Apiiro researchers found 2,539 credentials they classified as real secrets across 1,994 public GitHub repositories, including database passwords, API tokens, SSH credentials, and cloud keys.¹

One major source is Claude Code’s .claude/settings.local.json. Anthropic documents that choosing “Yes, and don’t ask again” for a Bash command saves a standing approval to this project-local file.² If that command contains a credential, the credential can be saved with it. Claude Code normally adds the file to a global Git exclusion, but Apiiro found cases where it was still committed, copied, or preserved in history.

The research goes further into what conventional secret scanners miss, other agent-generated files carrying credentials, and what developers should check now.