Secure Api

MCP server that lets Claude Code use secrets without seeing them.

Claude Code silently reads .env files and caches them in plaintext in ~/.claude/file-history/. This server injects secrets into commands and API calls at runtime, then sanitizes output to strip secret values before they reach Claude's context.

Threat model — read this. The strength of the guard differs by tool:

• api_call has the smallest attack surface: no shell, structured output, SSRF protection, and an optional destination allowlist (see below). Sanitization reliably covers its responses.
• run_with_env runs an arbitrary shell command. Output sanitization is best-effort, not a hard boundary — a command can re-encode, reverse, chunk, or otherwise transform a secret into a form the sanitizer won't recognize before printing it. Treat it as defense-in-depth.

A secret can only be protected if you control where it goes. Both tools can send a secret to an external destination by design; restrict that with deny rules, the api_call allowlist, and review of run_with_env commands.

Tools

• get_env_keys(project_dir) — Returns key names from .env. No values exposed.
• run_with_env(project_dir, command, env_keys?, timeout_ms?, include_mycnf?) — Runs a shell command with .env vars injected. Output is sanitized — secret values replaced with [REDACTED:KEY_NAME]. Set include_mycnf to also sanitize MySQL credentials from .my.cnf in command output.
• api_call(project_dir, url, method?, headers?, body?, auth_env_key?, timeout_ms?) — HTTP request with secret injection. auth_env_key adds a Bearer token. Headers support {{KEY_NAME}} template syntax. When a secret is injected, the destination host is checked against SECURE_API_ALLOWED_HOSTS (see below). Times out after timeout_ms (default 30s).
• read_mycnf(project_dir, section?) — Reads MySQL .my.cnf configuration. Returns section names and safe fields (port, database, socket) with credentials (user, password, host) redacted as [REDACTED:section.field]. Checks ~/.my.cnf and project-local .my.cnf.
• sync_env_example(project_dir) — Generates/updates .env.example from .env. Preserves comments and structure, strips values, uses smart placeholders.

Setup

npm install && npm run build

Register in Claude Code:

claude mcp add secure-api -- node /path/to/secure-api-mcp/dist/index.js

Pair with deny rules in ~/.claude/settings.json to block direct .env reads:

"deny": [
  "Read(.env)", "Read(**/.env)",
  "Read(.env.local)", "Read(**/.env.local)",
  "Edit(.env)", "Edit(**/.env)"
]

Keeping .env.example in sync

Run sync_env_example to generate or update .env.example from your .env. It:

• Preserves comments and blank lines from .env
• Strips secret values, replacing them with smart placeholders (URLs stay URL-shaped, booleans stay as-is, numbers stay as-is, everything else blanked)
• Merges with any existing .env.example — custom placeholders you've added won't be overwritten
• Lets Claude read .env.example freely (since deny rules only block .env) so it knows what config exists without seeing values

Pair this with get_env_keys and Claude has full awareness of your project's config without any secret exposure.

Restricting where api_call can send secrets

By default api_call will attach a secret to a request bound for any public host (internal/private IPs are always blocked for SSRF). To restrict this, set SECURE_API_ALLOWED_HOSTS to a comma-separated list of permitted hosts:

export SECURE_API_ALLOWED_HOSTS="api.stripe.com,api.github.com,*.internal.example.com"

• Set — a request that injects a secret is blocked unless its host matches. *.example.com matches any subdomain and the apex example.com. Matching is case-insensitive.
• Unset — secrets are still sent (so existing setups keep working), but the response includes a warnings entry naming the destination host.

Requests that inject no secret are never gated.

MySQL .my.cnf support

Claude can work with MySQL configs without seeing your credentials. read_mycnf exposes structural fields (port, database, socket) while redacting user, password, and host. When running MySQL commands via run_with_env, set include_mycnf: true to sanitize any credential values that appear in command output — the mysql CLI reads ~/.my.cnf natively, so no env var injection is needed.

Resolution order matches MySQL's own: ~/.my.cnf (global), then <project_dir>/.my.cnf (project-local overrides global per-field). !include and !includedir directives are followed. Includes in the project-local chain are contained to the project directory (resolved through symlinks) so a crafted project .my.cnf can't disclose files elsewhere on disk; the trusted global ~/.my.cnf chain is unrestricted.

How sanitization works

Secret values of 4 or more characters are replaced in all output, sorted longest-first to prevent partial matches. A value like sk-abc123xyz becomes [REDACTED:API_KEY]. The literal value, its base64 form, and its URL-encoded form are all matched, followed by a pattern pass for common token shapes (AWS, GitHub, Stripe, Slack, JWTs, private keys). Values transformed in other ways (hex, reversed, split across lines) are not caught — this is why run_with_env output is best-effort, not a guarantee.

License

MIT