Almost Leaked My Key—Thank God for GitGuardian

This morning I opened my inbox to find an alert from GitGuardian about a leaked key. My first thought: “Great, another phishing email.” Nearly deleted it on the spot. Then I realized—yesterday when I was using Cursor to bulk-update my scripts, I’d left the API key in plain text…

Why did I do this?

• I’m using Cursor to speed up script edits and testing endpoints—having the key in the code felt “convenient.”

• But convenience often comes at the cost of security, and this time I sacrificed security for speed.

Where I’m at now:

• Revoked that exposed key and generated a new one—urgently.

• Shifted all secrets into environment variables, removing them from code.

• Planning to integrate the GitGuardian CLI into my CI/CD pipeline to catch leaks before they ever reach my inbox.

Real talk: Getting this alert was both embarrassing and a huge relief—lesson learned!Next steps I’m curious about:

• What lightweight secret-management tools do you trust?

• How do you avoid the “oops, I forgot to remove the credentials” trap in your workflow?

Drop your tips, war stories, or suggestions in the comments—let’s co-create a safer, more efficient dev process together!