git-secrets

git-secrets is a set of git hooks that protects you against committing passwords into git. Instead of the commit being made you will be warned that are you attempting to commit something that is considered a secret.

This increases team security and decreases mistakes that can often lead to rotating passwords, which is a huge pain.

Installing

1. Navigate to where you keep your code and run the oneliner

   git clone https://github.com/ahatzz11/git-secrets-installer.git; cd git-secrets-installer; chmod +x install-git-secrets.sh; ./install-git-secrets.sh
   

   NOTE: If you are running MacOS Catalina you may be asked to give access to iTerm2 (or whatever terminal you are using) to folders. Feel free to deny these requests if you know there is no code in those folders.

   It will:

   • Install git-secrets on your machine
   • Install hooks on all existing local git repositories
   • Turn on automatic hook installation on future clones
   • Create a default ruleset to match the following patterns (case insensitive)

     (.*)password:
     (.*)password=
     (.*)secret:
     (.*)secret=
     (.*)authorization:
     (.*)authorization=
     

     Having the property name is fine, but if you have any characters (including white spaces) it won't let you commit.

2. Restart your terminal and verify this worked by running:

   git secrets --list --global
   

Useful commands

Add a pattern to the ruleset:

git secrets --add --global $textToMatch

Add a pattern to the allowed list:

git secrets --add --allowed --global $allowedTextOrPattern