github-secret-hunting

github-secret-hunting is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from uphiago/recon-skills. It costs 20 tokens per session (2,019 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A security-testing guide for searching public GitHub repositories for accidentally exposed API keys, access tokens, passwords, and infrastructure details.

In plain words
What is it for?
Reviewing public repositories, searching code and history for secrets, checking CI/CD exposure, and monitoring an organization for new leaks.
Why use it?
It helps authorized testers find credentials that developers may have published in code, configuration files, workflows, or build logs.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one. Also seen: positional $N argument.

Good fit Reviewing public repositories, searching code and history for secrets, checking CI/CD exposure, and monitoring an organization for new leaks.

Compare 6 skills from other repositories ↓
Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting
About the project

Recon Skills is a pack of security-testing skills covering reconnaissance, web applications, APIs, authentication, vulnerability validation, cloud infrastructure, and reporting. Security professionals use it for authorized assessments of systems they own or have written permission to test. The catalogue entries are individual skills from the pack.

uphiago/recon-skills · 1,251 stars · on GitHub · hiago.sh

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.

Any agent
npx skills add uphiago/recon-skills --skill github-secret-hunting
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/uphiago/recon-skills

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for github-secret-hunting

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for github-secret-hunting

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/uphiago/recon-skills/github-secret-hunting.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 20 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,019 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe. Third-party audits
  • NVIDIA SkillSpector warn 7 Sept 2026
SkillSpector: 16 findings, up to high

These are SkillSpector’s own severities. On a checked sample its high-severity flags on skills were ~96% false positives — a documented command, a public API, a “never do X” rule — so we show them as a caution to read, not a verdict. Why →

  • high Privilege Escalation · line 32
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 41
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 67
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 93
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 97
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 112
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 112
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 114
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • high Privilege Escalation · line 175
    Code accesses credential files (SSH keys, AWS credentials, etc.). This could indicate credential theft attempts.
    Fix: Remove references to credential paths. Use environment variables or secrets managers. For docs, use placeholder paths (e.g., /path/to/config). Never load .env or token files in production code paths.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 41
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 117
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 137
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium MCP Rug Pull · line 81
    Docker image references without a specific tag (:latest is implicit) or digest (@sha256:...) can be silently replaced by a malicious image.
    Fix: Pin the image: image:tag or image@sha256:abc123
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 135
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • medium Data Exfiltration · line 146
    Data is being sent to an external URL. This could be legitimate telemetry or data exfiltration. Manual review is recommended.
    Fix: Verify the destination URL is trusted and necessary. Remove or replace with documented APIs. Ensure no secrets, tokens, or PII are transmitted.
  • low Tool Misuse · line 81
    Tool parameters are crafted to achieve unintended or unsafe behavior. Parameter abuse can bypass intended safety checks (e.g. shell=True, --force, dangerous glob patterns).
    Fix: Validate all tool parameters against an allowlist. Reject dangerous parameter values (shell=True, --force, -rf /) and use safe defaults.
How audits are shown
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 5.1 $0.00020 $0.02019
Opus 5 $0.00010 $0.01009
Sonnet 5 $0.00004 $0.00404
Haiku 4.5 $0.00002 $0.00202

Measured 10d ago against content hash 28febdde5199, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-09, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

github-secret-hunting scanned grade A with 1 finding 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 10d 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.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

compatibility: Requires curl, httpx, python3
recon/github-secret-hunting/SKILL.md · 194 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 194 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

GitHub Secret Hunting

Scan public GitHub repositories for leaked API keys, tokens, passwords, and internal infrastructure details. Developers accidentally push secrets constantly — this skill uses targeted dorking, automated scanning tools, and real-time monitoring to find credentials before the developer notices and revokes them.

When to Use

  • Target has public repositories under an organization account.
  • JS bundle analysis reveals internal service names — search GitHub for related config files.
  • Need to find valid API keys for cloud services, payment gateways, or third-party integrations.
  • The target uses CI/CD systems that may leak tokens in build logs or workflow files.
  • Want real-time monitoring for new secret leaks from the target org.

Prerequisites

  • terminal with python3, curl, git.
  • GitHub Personal Access Token (only public_repo scope needed).
  • Tool dependencies: TruffleHog, GitDorker, gitleaks.

Quick Detection

# Basic GitHub code search for sensitive patterns in target repos
echo "target.com" | while read domain; do
  curl --max-time 30 --connect-timeout 10 -s -H "Authorization: token $GITHUB_TOKEN" \
    "https://api.github.com/search/code?q=$domain+filename:.env" \
    | jq '.items[]?.html_url'
done

Procedure

Phase 1 — Targeted Dorking with GitDorker

# Clone the dork collection and run against target
git clone https://github.com/Proviesec/github-dorks
python3 GitDorker.py \
  -tf $GITHUB_TOKEN \
  -q target.com \
  -d dorks/medium_dorks.txt \
  -o gitdorker_target.txt

# Also search by employee emails found in LinkedIn or metadata
python3 GitDorker.py \
  -tf $GITHUB_TOKEN \
  -q "[email protected]" \
  -d dorks/medium_dorks.txt

# Custom dork: find env files
python3 GitDorker.py -tf $GITHUB_TOKEN \
  -q "org:target filename:.env DB_PASSWORD" -d dorks/medium_dorks.txt

Phase 2 — TruffleHog Deep Scanning

# Scan a specific repo (finds secrets even in deleted commits)
trufflehog git https://github.com/target/repo --results=verified

# Scan entire GitHub org
trufflehog github --org=target --token=$GITHUB_TOKEN \
  --only-verified --threads=20 --json > trufflehog_org.json

# Docker variant
docker run --rm -it trufflesecurity/trufflehog:latest \
  github --only-verified --org=target

# Parse verified secrets
cat trufflehog_org.json | jq -r 'select(.Verified == true) | "\(.DetectorName): \(.RawV2)"'

Read the full file on GitHub · 194 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. 10d ago First seen · 194 lines · 20 tokens per session scan A 28febdde5199

Subscribe to this mod's changes

github-secret-hunting is a skill published in the GitHub repository uphiago/recon-skills (1,251 stars, last pushed 8d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 20 tokens to every session and 2,019 once invoked, about $0.0001 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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