sanitize-public

sanitize-public

The gate between a private working environment and anything other people can see. Most setups carry some private infrastructure worth keeping private (a LAN host, machine names, encrypted secrets, work that cannot be named publicly). Most of what gets authored is clean, but the cost of one leak crossing into a marketplace others clone onto their own machines is high and irreversible. This skill makes the check mechanical and repeatable instead of a thing you have to remember.

Why this exists (the marketplace fact that raises the stakes)

When someone installs a Claude Code plugin, the plugin directory is copied onto their machine, and relative-path plugins clone the whole marketplace repo. Whatever sits in that repo ships. The same is true of a downloadable content bundle (a tar.gz someone fetches) and any public repo. There is no "delete it later" once it is on other people's disks and in git history. So the scan runs on the artifact that will actually ship, not the source tree it came from.

When this fires (and when it does not)

Fires on:

• Building or updating a plugin marketplace repo, or adding a plugin to one
• Packaging a downloadable bundle or exporting content for publish
• Pushing a new public repo or gist, or sharing a skill/command with someone
• Explicit ask: "is this safe to publish," "scan before shipping," "make sure nothing private leaks," "check this bundle"

Does not fire on:

• Work that stays inside a private surface (private repos, local-only files, a private Claude config repo). Those are allowed to contain private data; that is the point of them.
• Routine editing that is not about to be published. Do not nag mid-draft.

If the destination is ambiguous, ask one question: "is this going somewhere the public can reach?" If yes, gate it.

Rebuild, do not redact (the rule that actually prevents leaks)

Never copy a private file into a public artifact and then remove the private parts. Redaction can only remove what you thought to look for, so it fails on the thing you did not think of, every time. The scanner is a backstop for when this rule is broken, not a substitute for it. A scanner finding means the process already failed.