Claude Code approvals are leaving credentials in public repositories

single source· 1 articles · confidence: low · first seen 2026-11-09 17:24 UTC

What this means for you

If your team uses Claude Code, check whether its settings files are committed to any repository and whether they hold keys or passwords. One report, no vendor response, no stated scope — treat it as a reason to look, not a confirmed figure.

Claude Code's permission prompts offer a "don't ask again" option, which records the approval in a settings file; those files are turning up in public GitHub repositories with credentials inside them. Ars Technica reports thousands of exposed secrets, including passwords and API keys. It is a single report: it gives no count of affected repositories, no indication of which organisations are exposed, and no response from Anthropic.

Key facts

  • ·Ars Technica reports thousands of exposed secrets, including passwords and API keys, sitting in Claude Code settings files on GitHub. source
  • ·The report attributes the exposure to users accepting a "Do not ask again" prompt. source
  • ·The report was published on 9 November 2026. source

What the sources say

  • Ars Technica AI — Single report tying exposed credentials on GitHub to permissions users grant their coding agent.

Sources

The original reporting. Follow these — they did the work.

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