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[ARTICLE · art-123760] src=dev.to ↗ pub= topic=developer-tools verified=true sentiment=· neutral

I built a secret scanner that tries to answer “is this secret actually live?"

A developer has built SecretLoop, a secret scanner now in Preview on Open VSX that goes beyond detection to verify whether exposed credentials are still live and guide remediation. The tool integrates with MCP for AI-assisted workflows, redacts credential values, and requires explicit human approval before any verification request is sent to a provider.

read1 min views6 publishedSep 8, 2026

I’ve been building SecretLoop, and it’s now available in Preview on Open VSX.

The problem I was trying to solve is pretty simple.

You run a secret scanner and get:

“Found an API key.”

Cool. But then what?

Is it still active?

Was it already revoked?

Is it buried somewhere in Git history?

Do I need to rotate it?

And how do I actually remove it without manually hunting through the code?

SecretLoop is built around this flow:

Detect → Verify → Remediate

.env The MCP part was particularly important to get right.

SecretLoop doesn't have an LLM inside it. The scanner produces deterministic findings; the AI assistant can explain and work with those findings.

Credential values are always redacted in MCP responses, and verification is opt-in and requires explicit human approval before a credential is sent to its provider.

You can try it without installing anything:

npx secretloop scan

Or scan Git history:

npx secretloop history

For CI:

npx secretloop scan --format sarif -o results.sarif

Open VSX:

GitHub:

It's still early/Preview, so I'm much more interested in feedback than downloads.

If you use gitleaks, TruffleHog, GitGuardian, GitHub Secret Scanning, etc., I'd especially love to know:

What happens after your scanner finds a secret?

That's the part I'm trying to improve.

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