cd /news/ai-tools/after-the-agent-tool-breach-i-asked-… · home › topics › ai-tools › article
[ARTICLE · art-154336] src=dev.to ↗ pub= topic=ai-tools verified=true sentiment=· neutral

After the agent-tool breach, I asked: where do my API keys actually live?

A developer built keymap, a dependency-free local Python tool that scans the config files agent tools, CLIs and shells read — including ~/.claude.json, ~/.codex/config.toml, ~/.env, shell rc files and history, and ~/.aws/credentials — to inventory where provider API keys and secrets are stored. The tool reports each key's location, flags world-readable files and keys staged for or already in git, and ends with a rotation checklist linking the revoke page for each provider. The developer created it after an agent-tool vendor breach exposed provider API keys in its console workspaces, noting that finding a key in five places is normal rather than careless.

by read1 min views2 publishedOct 21, 2026

A few days ago, an agent-tool vendor disclosed a breach that exposed

provider API keys stored in its console workspaces. My first thought

wasn't about their infrastructure. It was much more embarrassing:

Which keys do I even have, and where are they stored?

I couldn't answer that in under a minute. And I suspect most developers

can't. A provider key gets pasted into one agent tool's config, then

another's, then an .env file, then shell history — and every copy is

another place it can leak from, and another line on the bill if someone

abuses it.

So I built a small tool that answers the question locally: keymap.

One command, no dependencies, no network:

python -m keymap

It scans the config files your agent tools, CLIs and shells actually

read — ~/.claude.json, ~/.codex/config.toml, ~/.env, shell rc

files and history, ~/.aws/credentials, and friends — and reports:

*_API_KEY / *_TOKEN / *_SECRET variable it doesn't recognise),chmod 600 it),git add . away from a commit — or already tracked. It finishes with a rotation checklist: the exact revoke page for every

provider it found. After a vendor breach, that's the difference

between a scavenger hunt and a checklist.

sk-ant-…) plus a SHA-256 fingerprint prefix, so you can recognise the The repo ships examples/demo-home/ — a fake home with the same

Anthropic key in two files, an OpenAI key in .env and shell

history, a GitHub token, and a world-readable .env:

sh examples/run-demo.sh

If you run it on your real home and find a key in five places, you're

not careless — you're normal. That's exactly why I built it.

── more in #ai-tools 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @keymap 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
→ Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host ✓
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/after-the-agent-tool…] indexed:0 read:1min 2026-10-21 · —