Security firm Apiiro said it found a real secret in 1,122 public copies of a Claude Code settings file. It checked 104,185 public copies on GitHub. Claude Code writes the file, .claude/settings.local.json, when a user picks "Yes, and don't ask again" on a command. Apiiro says the saved command keeps any password typed into it. Counting older file versions, shared settings files and saved chat logs, Apiiro found 2,539 secrets in 1,994 repositories. It ties 63 organizations to these cases.
Apiiro did not test whether any of the secrets still work. It counts a secret as real if it matches a known key format, or sits next to a public server address. One company told Apiiro its key had been live. Apiiro warned affected owners on November 2 and 3. It also says users reported this behavior in GitHub issues since August 2025 and got no reply from Anthropic. Anthropic's response to this research has not been reported.
Apiiro advises changing every credential the file has ever held before any cleanup. Deleting the file is not enough: Apiiro found 734 secrets that appear only in older versions, and forks copy the file too. For teams that use Claude Code, the file lives in project folders and on laptops, so both are worth checking.