hardcoded-secrets

A security review that finds passwords, API keys, tokens, connection credentials, and private keys written directly in source code or configuration. Such values can remain in version-control history and build artifacts.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to check application code, configuration files, deployment scripts, and tests for embedded production or shared secrets.
Why use it?
It helps prevent stolen credentials from being exposed through repositories, container images, test fixtures, or released software.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/thejefflarson/soundcheck/hardcoded-secrets
Any agent
npx skills add thejefflarson/soundcheck --skill hardcoded-secrets
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/thejefflarson/soundcheck

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 69 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 662 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00069 $0.00662
Opus 5 $0.00034 $0.00331
Sonnet 5 $0.00014 $0.00132
Haiku 4.5 $0.00007 $0.00066

Measured 2d ago against content hash 31b40a8e4f1f, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

hardcoded-secrets scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.claude/skills/hardcoded-secrets/SKILL.md · 61 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 61 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Hardcoded Secrets Security Check (CWE-798)

What this checks

Protects against credentials, API keys, and secrets embedded directly in source code. Hardcoded secrets end up in version control history, build artifacts, and container images. Once committed, secrets are effectively public — even if the commit is reverted, the secret remains in git history.

Vulnerable patterns

  • String literal that resembles a production API key, access token, or session secret assigned to a constant
  • Hardcoded password or shared-secret literal used as the only credential check
  • Connection string with embedded username and password committed to source
  • Private key material (PEM, PKCS#8, SSH) pasted inline as a string literal
  • Cloud-provider access keys, OAuth client secrets, or webhook signing keys in source or config files

Fix immediately

Flag the hardcoded secret and explain the risk. Translate the principles below to the audited file's language and deployment environment — use that stack's documented secret loader, env-var helper, or secrets-manager client.

For each finding, establish these properties:

  1. Secrets are loaded from outside the source tree. Environment variable, secrets manager (AWS Secrets Manager, HashiCorp Vault, 1Password), KMS, or OS keystore. No string literal that resembles a real credential appears in source — not in code, not in config files, not in test fixtures.
  2. Missing secrets fail loudly at load time, not silently at first use. A required-env lookup with no fallback, a required-field check, or an early fatal log guarantees a misconfigured deploy crashes immediately rather than running with an empty string that mysteriously fails later.
  3. Test fixtures use obviously fake values — placeholder strings that read as "do not use" — that cannot be mistaken for production credentials and will never unlock a real service if leaked.
  4. Rotation does not require a code change. If rotating the credential means editing source and redeploying, the secret is effectively hardcoded even if it's technically loaded through a constant. Rotation happens by updating the external store and restarting.

Read the full file on GitHub · 61 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 61 lines · 69 tokens per session scan A 31b40a8e4f1f

Subscribe to this mod's changes

hardcoded-secrets is a skill published in the GitHub repository thejefflarson/soundcheck (20 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 69 tokens to every session and 662 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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