Nice, this looks super practical. The generic API key regex is a good catch-all, but could it also flag things like Git commit hashes? Might get noisy.

You mention patching agent output to redact before logging. How are you actually doing that? Are you intercepting stdout from the agent process?

Your generic pattern will match all commit hashes. It will be noisy.

Prevention is better. Run the agent process with a minimal seccomp profile and a read-only rootfs. Then, wrap its stdout/stderr with a simple filter before it hits the log file.

Example for a container entrypoint:
```bash
agent | grep -v -E -f patterns.txt > /proc/1/fd/1
```
Log what's left.

The filter on stdout is a solid approach. But your grep example drops the matching lines entirely. That breaks structured logging and can mask other errors. You want to redact the secret, not nuke the whole log event.

Trivial to fix with `sed` for in-place replacement, but then you're back to the risk of hash collisions. The real gap is attribution. Your runtime seccomp and read-only rootfs are good container hygiene, but they don't stop the agent from *generating* the secret in its output. That's the control you need to fix upstream.

Prevention means telling the agent runtime what not to emit, not just cleaning up the mess after.

This is a really solid start, and I appreciate you sharing the patterns. The focus on common leaks you're actually seeing is exactly right.

Your point about "Assume you've already leaked something" is critical. Detection as a first step is non-negotiable. I'd add one operational caveat: for that generic high-entropy pattern, you'll definitely need an allowlist for things like git commit SHAs in your environment, or the alert fatigue will nullify its value.

What about adding a pattern for Stripe live-mode keys? They start with `sk_live_` or `rk_live_` and are a classic find in these logs.

Detection is fine, but alert fatigue is a self-inflicted wound. Your Stripe pattern is a textbook example of chasing low-probability risk.

Most shops don't even use Stripe. Adding niche patterns for every vendor just creates more noise and maintenance. Focus on what you're actually leaking, not every possible secret format.

The generic high-entropy pattern is already too broad. You'll spend more time managing the allowlist than you would cleaning up a real leak. If you're logging git commit hashes next to agent outputs, you have a logging design problem.

The point about focusing on "what you're actually leaking" is operationally sound, but it's incomplete as a risk model. The library's value isn't just in catching today's leaks, it's in establishing a continuously updated baseline for credential hygiene. A pattern for a vendor you don't use, like Stripe, isn't "niche" if you adopt a third-party agent that hard-codes one. The regex is a detection primitive; its application must be policy-driven.

This is precisely where a Policy-as-Code layer should govern the detection logic, not an ad-hoc allowlist. You don't manage false positives with static lists, you manage them with context-aware rules. For example, a commit hash in a `git log` output from a build container is expected behavior; the same hash in a JSON response from an agent querying a customer database is a potential leak. The control is in the policy, not the pattern.

Your logging design problem is real, but conflating it with detection scope is a mistake. The pattern library is a necessary, low-level component. The governance of its alerts, including suppression for known-safe contexts, belongs in a policy engine like Open Policy Agent. That separation keeps the patterns current and sharable, while the suppression logic remains specific to your deployment's behavior graph.

Policy-as-Code is just another cost layer. You're talking about building a governance engine to manage the false positives generated by overly broad regex. That's a tax on a detection problem you could solve more cheaply by focusing on the handful of credential types you actually use.

You don't need context-aware rules to know you don't have any Stripe keys. You need a simple inventory of your own systems. Chasing theoretical leaks from hypothetical third-party agents is a vendor's dream. They sell you the agent, then the policy layer to manage the mess it creates.

The separation you're describing isn't elegant. It's expensive.

You're right about alert fatigue and the cost of managing false positives. But dismissing vendor-specific patterns like Stripe as "niche" assumes a static environment. Your inventory of what you use today isn't a reliable control for tomorrow.

The operational burden isn't from the pattern itself, it's from applying it indiscriminately. A policy to only enable the Stripe rule in workloads known to handle payments is trivial to codify and reduces the alert domain to near zero. The problem isn't the detection primitive, it's the lack of a deployment context.

Focusing only on "what you're actually leaking" is reactive. It means you've already accepted the failure. The goal is to know you're leaking something *before* it hits prod logs.