kalix127/secret-stripperA small Rust CLI that strips secrets from your clipboard on demand.
A small Rust CLI that strips secrets from your clipboard on demand. Bind a hotkey, highlight text, press the chord - the clipboard holds a redacted version. Normal Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V is never intercepted.
Linux - one command, no extra setup:
curl -sSf https://secretstripper.download/install.sh | bash
Default chord: Ctrl+Alt+X.
macOS - needs a one-time global-hotkey helper (skhd or Hammerspoon). See macOS setup for permissions and troubleshooting.
brew install koekeishiya/formulae/skhd
curl -sSf https://secretstripper.download/install.sh | bash
# Grant skhd Accessibility: System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility
skhd --restart-service
Default chord: Cmd+Shift+C.
Windows (PowerShell) - needs AutoHotkey v2. See Windows setup for the full flow.
winget install AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey
iwr -useb https://secretstripper.download/install.ps1 | iex
Default chord: Ctrl+Alt+C.
From crates.io (Rust) - same per-OS prerequisites apply (skhd on macOS, AutoHotkey on Windows):
cargo install secret-stripper && secret-stripper init
From source (git):
cargo install --git https://github.com/kalix127/secret-stripper.git --locked && secret-stripper init
After install, highlight text and press your chord. On Linux the PRIMARY selection is read directly, so you can skip the Ctrl+C. Paste with Ctrl+V (Cmd+V on macOS).
Run secret-stripper menu to tune settings, or secret-stripper --help for all commands.
| OS | Status | Hotkey backend |
|---|---|---|
| Linux | ✅ Supported | gsettings (GNOME / Cinnamon / Unity / Budgie / Pantheon), gsettings (MATE schema), xfconf-query (XFCE), kwriteconfig + qdbus (KDE Plasma 5/6) |
| macOS | ✅ Supported | skhd (~/.skhdrc) or Hammerspoon (~/.hammerspoon/init.lua); manual instructions if neither is installed |
| Windows | ✅ Supported | AutoHotkey v2 (%APPDATA%\secret-stripper\secret-stripper.ahk) - install via winget install AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey |
There is no zero-install way to register a true global hotkey on macOS without a resident process. Secret Stripper itself stays one-shot, so it delegates hotkey capture to one of two well-known helpers: skhd (lightweight, recommended) or Hammerspoon (heavier, scriptable). If neither is installed, init falls back to printing manual binding instructions.
Install skhd via Homebrew:
brew install koekeishiya/formulae/skhd
Run secret-stripper init. It writes ~/.skhdrc, the launchd LaunchAgent for the daily update check, and the config file. Output includes a "DE binding" line: OK if skhd / Hammerspoon was detected, FAILED with install hints if not.
Grant skhd Accessibility permission. skhd needs this to intercept global hotkeys, otherwise it silently captures nothing. Open System Settings -> Privacy & Security -> Accessibility, click +, add /usr/local/bin/skhd, and toggle it on. If skhd was already running, restart it so the new permission takes effect:
skhd --restart-service
Test the chord:
echo "[email protected]" | pbcopy
# Press your chord (default: Cmd+Shift+C)
pbpaste # expect: [REDACTED]
Hammerspoon alternative: brew install --cask hammerspoon, open it once to grant Accessibility, then run secret-stripper init - it writes the binding into ~/.hammerspoon/init.lua instead of ~/.skhdrc.
Default chord: Cmd+Shift+C. macOS apps often claim Cmd-modifier chords, so if it conflicts with something you use (browser DevTools, Finder "Copy Path", etc.), rebind from secret-stripper menu -> Rebind Hotkey. Two safer options if you want to plan ahead: Cmd+Option+X or Cmd+Ctrl+X.
Windows has no zero-install way to register a true global hotkey. Same constraint as macOS - Secret Stripper delegates hotkey capture to AutoHotkey v2 (the Windows analogue of skhd). AutoHotkey uses the Win32 RegisterHotKey API under the hood and is the only mechanism that delivers the chord reliably across focused windows, full-screen apps, and elevated processes. AutoHotkey is required - init aborts with an install hint if it cannot find it.
Install AutoHotkey via winget:
winget install AutoHotkey.AutoHotkey
The package installs AutoHotkey v2 to C:\Program Files\AutoHotkey\v2\.
Run secret-stripper init. It writes %APPDATA%\secret-stripper\secret-stripper.ahk, drops a startup .lnk so AHK re-launches the script at every login, and starts the AHK process immediately so the chord is live without a logout.
Test the chord:
Set-Clipboard "[email protected]"
# Press your chord (default: Ctrl+Alt+C)
Get-Clipboard # expect: [REDACTED]
Ctrl+Alt+<key> (optionally with Shift); other chords are rejected.Ctrl+C, then your chord).schtasks daily task at 11:00..ahk file and the startup .lnk. Other AHK scripts you have running are untouched.| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| 🔴 Cloud Secrets | AWS keys, Google API keys, Azure credentials, OpenAI tokens, Stripe keys, Heroku API keys |
| 🔴 Auth Tokens | GitHub tokens, GitLab tokens, Slack tokens, Discord tokens, JWTs, bearer tokens, NPM tokens |
| 🔴 Cryptographic Keys | RSA/EC/OpenSSH private keys, PGP private keys, SSH public keys |
| 🔴 PII | Credit card numbers, SSNs, phone numbers, email addresses, passport numbers |
| 🟠 Connection Strings | PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Redis, MySQL, JDBC URLs with credentials |
| 🟡 Heuristic | Unusual strings, env files with secrets, JSON with password fields, base64-encoded content |
| 🟢 Safe | Normal text, emails, documents - no false alerts |
For the full list of buckets, severity tiers, and patterns, see DETECTION_COVERAGE.md.
Pick how detected secrets are replaced from secret-stripper menu -> Redaction Style:
| Style | Output for aws=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE |
|---|---|
| Marker (default) | aws=[REDACTED] - uses a configurable marker string (eight presets + custom) |
| Drop | aws= - removes the matched bytes entirely |
| Typed | aws=[AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID] - replaces each span with a tag derived from the matched pattern name |
| Placeholder | aws=AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE - swaps in a realistic but fake sample value for the matched pattern (an email becomes [email protected], a Stripe key sk_test_4eC39HqLyjWDarjtT1zdp7dc) |
The same setting applies to the hotkey trigger, the redact pipeline subcommand, and the paste-guard AI-TUI wrapper.
Secrets often live in screenshots, not just text - a terminal grab, a config pane, an API dashboard. When you trigger the hotkey and the clipboard holds an image instead of text, Secret Stripper OCRs the image, runs the same detector it uses for text, and paints a solid black box over only the words that contain a secret. The redacted image is written back to the clipboard. Clean parts of the image are left untouched - the whole screenshot is never blacked out.
Supported on Linux only - both X11 and Wayland. On macOS and Windows the hotkey still does text redaction; a clipboard image is left untouched.
When an image is on the clipboard, the hotkey redacts the image even if you have text highlighted - so screenshot -> hotkey just works.
It needs the tesseract OCR CLI on your PATH. It is an optional runtime dependency: everything else works without it.
sudo pacman -S tesseract tesseract-data-eng # Arch
sudo apt install tesseract-ocr # Debian / Ubuntu
sudo dnf install tesseract # Fedora
It fails closed: if tesseract is missing, the image cannot be read, or a detected secret cannot be located, the clipboard is left untouched and you get a notification - the original image is never silently passed through and never wiped. OCR makes this path slower than the instant text path (roughly half a second to a couple of seconds for a full screenshot), so wait for the notification before pasting.
Image redaction is off by default. Turn it on from secret-stripper menu -> Detection Settings -> Screenshot redaction, or set enable_image_scan = true in config.toml.
secret-stripper init looks for installed AI terminal tools (Claude Code, Codex CLI, aider, Gemini CLI, Continue, opencode) and prints a ready-to-copy shell alias block. Each alias routes the tool through paste-guard, a PTY wrapper that intercepts clipboard pastes and redacts secrets before they reach the AI's prompt - typing and normal output are untouched. Copy the snippet into your shell config (~/.zshrc, ~/.bashrc, ~/.config/fish/config.fish, or your PowerShell profile) and open a new shell:
# ----------------------------------
alias claude='secret-stripper paste-guard -- claude'
alias codex='secret-stripper paste-guard -- codex'
# ----------------------------------
Secret Stripper never writes to your shell rc on its own. To stop routing through paste-guard, delete the block between the dashed comment lines.
Scope. paste-guard is a per-process wrapper - it only filters pastes into the one command you ran it on. Daily use of ssh, psql, vim, kubectl, the bare shell prompt, GUI apps, the system clipboard - all completely untouched. You can also add aliases for non-AI tools by hand (live demos against psql / mysql, screen-recordings) - wrapping leaf commands is fine, wrapping a whole shell usually is not.
You can also pipe arbitrary text through the same engine:
cat secrets.log | secret-stripper redact > clean.log
Limitations. Bracketed paste must be supported by your terminal (every modern emulator does, including the VSCode integrated terminal and tmux passthrough); typed secrets are never modified, only pasted ones; paste payloads above 1 MiB fall through unredacted.
See CONTRIBUTING.md for build, test, lint, and commit conventions.
