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What to do if I accidentally commit an API key or other sensitive information to the git repo? (self.programming)

submitted 4 months ago by mypasswordis1234 to c/[email protected]

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I know that pushing a commit with an API key is something for which a developer should have his balls cut off, but...

...I'm wondering what I should do if, somehow, I accidentally commit an API key or other sensitive information, an environment variable to the repo.

Should I just revoke the access and leave it as is, or maybe locally remove this commit and force-push a new one without the key? How do you guys handle this situation in a professional environment?

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago

If it's a publicly-accessible repo, then immediately revoke the key and leave it. Force-pushing isn't good enough because the old commit will still be tracked by Git until the garbage collector kicks in, and you don't have control over the GC on GitHub (not sure about other providers).

If it's an internal repo that's only accessible by employees, then you probably should still revoke it, but you've got more leeway. Usually I'd create a ticket to revoke it when there's time, unless this is particularly sensitive.