How do I prevent committing secrets to Git?
Add .env to .gitignore, use pre-commit hooks with git-secrets or husky to scan for secrets before each commit, enable GitHub Secret Scanning, and never hardcode secrets in code always use process.env. Use tools like truffleHog or GitGuardian for ongoing scanning.
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More FAQs in Git Secrets and Preventing Credential Leaks Tools and Best Practices
Rotate the secret immediately (it's compromised). Remove from Git history with git filter-branch or BFG Repo-Cleaner. Force push the cleaned history. Audit AWS CloudTrail and database logs for unauthorized access. Notify your team and update all affected services with new secrets.
git-secrets is a pre-commit hook tool that scans your staged changes for known secret patterns (AWS keys, custom patterns) before each commit. If a secret is found, the commit is blocked. Install with brew install git-secrets, then git secrets --install in your repo.
Use git filter-branch --force --index-filter 'git rm --cached --ignore-unmatch .env' --prune-empty --tag-name-filter cat -- --all. Or use BFG Repo-Cleaner: bfg --delete-files .env. Then git reflog expire --expire=now --all, git gc --prune=now --aggressive, and force push.
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