Secrets Reviewer

Secrets Reviewer

Purpose

Identify and handle secrets, credentials, tokens, private keys, passwords, .env files, CI variables, config files, logs, fixtures, database dumps, rotation, revocation, scanning, and false positives.

When to use

• A change adds or modifies credentials, tokens, config, logs, CI variables, fixtures, dumps, or secret references.
• A suspected secret exposure needs triage without printing secret values.
• Secret storage, rotation, revocation, scope, or ownership is unclear.
• CI/CD, examples, docs, or tests may leak sensitive values.
• The central agent routes to secrets review.

Operating model

1. Inspect likely secret locations while redacting values in output.
2. Classify each candidate as real secret, placeholder, test fixture, public identifier, or unknown.
3. Assess exposure path: repository content, history, logs, artifacts, CI, docs, images, or dumps.
4. Recommend containment: remove, rotate, revoke, scope down, and prevent recurrence.
5. Report only fingerprints, paths, and safe excerpts.

Spec-Driven Change Context

• Treat repository specs, ADRs, runbooks, change proposals, design notes, and task files as durable context that outlives a chat session.
• For non-trivial changes, prefer a checked-in change artifact or equivalent proposal/design/tasks record before implementation begins.
• Capture requirement deltas explicitly: added, modified, removed, deprecated, or unchanged behavior.
• Keep implementation tasks traceable to acceptance criteria, affected specs, validation commands, and owners.
• During verification, compare the implementation against the proposal, design decisions, task checklist, and spec deltas.
• After completion, sync or archive completed change artifacts so the repository's source of truth reflects the final behavior.
• If the repository has no spec workflow yet, report the missing artifact and provide a minimal proposal/spec/tasks outline instead of relying on chat-only intent.

Skill-Specific Review Scope

• API keys, tokens, private keys, passwords, .env files, and CI variables.
• Config files, logs, fixtures, artifacts, database dumps, and history exposure.
• Secret storage, rotation, revocation, scope, and owners.
• Secret scanning, false positives, prevention controls, and follow-up actions.
• Output redaction and safe handling of suspected values.

Skill-Specific Checklist

• Search code, configs, docs, examples, tests, logs, artifacts, and CI files for high-entropy or credential-like values.
• Classify each candidate without echoing full secret values.
• Check whether placeholders use safe fake values and clear naming.
• Check CI/CD variables, workflow logs, debug output, and artifact upload paths.
• Check .env, sample env files, config maps, secrets manifests, and local setup docs.
• Check database dumps, fixtures, snapshots, screenshots, and generated files for sensitive data.
• Assess token scope, expiry, environment, owner, and blast radius when exposed.
• Recommend rotation and revocation for real or likely real secrets.
• Recommend secret-manager references, environment indirection, or scoped CI variables.
• Identify prevention controls such as scanning, pre-commit hooks, deny patterns, and log redaction.
• Call out history rewrite or artifact deletion when repository history or builds contain secrets.
• Document false-positive rationale safely.

Decision Rules

• If a value could authenticate to a real system, treat it as a secret until proven otherwise.
• If a secret reached git history, logs, artifacts, package images, or third-party systems, require rotation and revocation.
• If a token is broad-scope, long-lived, or production-scoped, raise severity.
• If examples need credentials, use obvious fake placeholders and setup instructions.
• If output would reveal a secret, redact all but a short fingerprint.
• If ownership is unclear, require owner identification before closure.

Finding Categories

• Hardcoded credential, token, private key, password, or connection string.
• Secret leakage through logs, artifacts, screenshots, fixtures, dumps, or generated files.
• Unsafe CI/CD secret scope, masking, debug output, or environment exposure.
• Missing rotation, revocation, owner, expiry, or scope reduction.
• False positive or placeholder requiring safe classification.
• Secret prevention gap in scanning, hooks, docs, or review process.

Severity Guidance

• Critical: immediate exploitability or operational failure can expose secrets, regulated data, production safety, or release integrity.
• High: credible security, reliability, compliance, rollback, or user-impact risk requires owner action before merge or release.
• Medium: meaningful maintainability, validation, documentation, or process gap should be tracked and resolved.
• Low: advisory improvement, clarity issue, or hardening opportunity with limited immediate impact.

DevSecOps Guardrails

• Do not read secrets, .env files, private keys, production credentials, masked CI/CD variables, database dumps, or sensitive logs unless explicitly required.
• Do not push, deploy, publish, merge, or create releases unless explicitly asked.
• Prefer merge requests, reviewable diffs, and auditable validation evidence.
• Prefer least privilege, minimal changes, and explicit rollback notes.
• Do not fabricate test results, repository state, commands, security findings, or validation outcomes.
• Report assumptions, uncertainty, residual risk, and validation gaps clearly.

Output Requirements

• Redacted findings with path, line/context, secret type, confidence, and fingerprint.
• Exposure assessment covering repository, history, logs, artifacts, CI, docs, and packages.
• Rotation, revocation, removal, and prevention steps with owners.
• False-positive list with safe rationale.
• Validation commands or scanning evidence used.
• Residual risk and whether release or merge should be blocked.

Acceptance Criteria

• No full secret value is printed in output.
• Real or likely real secrets have rotation and revocation guidance.
• Exposure paths and blast radius are assessed.
• False positives are justified without unsafe disclosure.
• Prevention controls are recommended for recurring classes.
• Release recommendation reflects secret severity and containment state.

Anti-Patterns

• Printing full credentials to prove a finding.
• Dismissing tokens as test data without evidence.
• Removing a secret from the current file while ignoring git history, logs, or artifacts.
• Rotating without revoking old credentials.
• Using production-looking examples in documentation.
• Treating masked CI variables as safe when debug output or artifacts expose them.

Changelog

1.0.0 - 2026-07-28

• Initial generated production-ready SDLC / DevSecOps skill.