Stop API keys from reaching AI chat logs.
API Key Leak Intercept sits between your clipboard and every AI chat you use. The moment you try to send an API key, secret, or piece of personal data to ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or any other AI chat, it stops you and asks: are you sure?
Free forever and open source. You do not need an account to use the free plan. Message text and secret values never leave your browser. Privacy policy
What happens the moment you install it
- You paste an API key into ChatGPT to debug an error
- The key is now in OpenAI's logs, forever
- Bots scrape it within hours
- You wake up to a $4,000 bill
- Your startup is at risk of bankruptcy
- API Key Leak Intercept detects the key before it sends
- A modal appears: "Secret detected"
- You cancel, redact, or send anyway
- Cancel or redact, and the key never leaves your browser
- Your bill stays at zero
Why this exists
I run autonomous AI agents. They use API keys. Those keys end up in logs, in prompts, in debugging sessions. One day I caught myself about to paste an OpenAI key into OpenClaw to ask why a request was failing. I stopped, but barely.
Then I read the stories. Developers paste AWS access keys into public AI chats to get help debugging a script. Startups face bankruptcy after unauthorized API usage reaches $28,000 in a single weekend. Billing telemetry arrives late, so by the time the alert lands the damage is done.
It takes a guardrail, one that fires in the three seconds between pressing paste and pressing send. Willpower has a bad record here.
What it detects
- API keys and tokens: OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS (access key + secret), GitHub, Stripe, Google, Slack, JWT, Bearer tokens, PEM private keys, and generic high-entropy tokens.
- Personal data (Pro): Email addresses, phone numbers, credit and debit cards, IBANs, IP addresses, and national identity numbers for 30 countries (US SSN, Italian codice fiscale and partita IVA, Mexican CURP and RFC, Singapore NRIC/FIN, New Zealand IRD, Brazilian CPF, German Steuer-ID, French NIR, Indian Aadhaar and PAN, and more).
- Custom patterns (Pro): Add your own regex for internal secrets, tokens, or identifiers.
All detection runs locally in your browser. Your text and your secrets never leave your machine.
How it works (technical)
Detection makes no backend requests, and the extension carries no analytics or trackers. The manifest asks Chrome for three permissions: storage for your settings, alarms for the daily configuration fetch and license check, and scripting to register the content script on the extra sites an IT admin adds. Enterprise installs are recognized through the management API, which requires no permission. Host access lets the content script watch the chat sites, and the popup's fonts ship inside the extension, so nothing loads from a third party.
The detection engine is a set of regex patterns that run against the text you are about to send:
sk-(?:proj-)?[A-Za-z0-9_-]{20,} → OpenAI API key
A content script watches for the Enter key or send button on every AI chat site. Before the message is sent, it scans the text. If a secret is found, a modal appears with three options: Cancel (do not send), Send anyway (override), or Redact (replace secrets with typed placeholders like [API_KEY_1]).
It is open source. The full source is on GitHub. Read it before you install it.
For IT and security teams
API Key Leak Intercept has a team mode designed for enterprise deployment. IT managers can force-install it on every machine via Chrome Enterprise Policy, configure notification channels, and get alerted when employees paste secrets into AI chats.
- Universal mode: scan all websites. Catches secrets pasted into any input field, wherever it is.
- Alert channels: Slack, Microsoft Teams, Telegram, email, or any webhook. Alerts include employee, site, page URL, secret type, severity, action taken, and timestamp.
- The actual secret is never transmitted. Only metadata leaves the browser.
- Audit log: local storage of last 100 alerts, plus a cloud dashboard (Cloudflare Worker) for IT managers.
- Non-uninstallable: force-installed via Chrome Enterprise Policy. Employees cannot remove it.
- Managed mode: auto-detects enterprise policy installation and shows "Managed by IT" in the popup.
- Seats follow the machine: one installed copy takes one seat. The console shows seats in use against seats bought, and setup codes stop rolling out at the seat count until you add more.
See the IT admin guide for deployment guides and MDM configuration.
How to install
Add to Chrome
Click the button above and the Chrome Web Store listing opens. Press Add to Chrome there and confirm. The install page covers the manual package if you would rather load it by hand.
Go to any AI chat
Open ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or any supported site. Type or paste a message. If it contains a secret, API Key Leak Intercept stops you before it sends.
Forget it exists
The extension runs silently. No configuration needed for personal use. For IT teams, enable team mode in the popup and enter your org ID.
Supported sites
API Key Leak Intercept runs on all of these out of the box, plus any site in universal mode:
ChatGPT · Claude · Gemini · Copilot · Perplexity · Mistral · DeepSeek · HuggingFace · Poe · You.com · Phind · Character.ai · Pi · Meta AI · Grok · Cohere · Jasper · Copy.ai · Writesonic · Notion · GitHub · Slack · Discord · and more.
Frequently asked questions
Does it slow down my browser?
No. Detection runs only when you press Enter or click send, and the regex patterns execute in microseconds. Nothing is polled in the background. The extension fetches a signed detection configuration once a day, and with a Pro license it rechecks the license once a day. Team mode adds a heartbeat every 6 hours. These requests carry no message data.
What if I want to send a secret anyway?
Click "Send anyway" in the modal. The message sends normally. In team mode, IT gets notified that you overrode the warning.
Does it collect any data?
Your text and the secret values never leave the browser. The routine requests fetch the signed detection configuration and, if you bought Pro, check the license. Neither carries message data. Personal Pro also relays catch metadata — the site, the page path, the secret type, the action, and the time, never the secret itself — so it can appear in your account’s activity feed. In team mode, the same kind of metadata goes to the channels IT configures. The privacy policy walks through every request the extension makes.
Can I add my own secret patterns?
Yes, with Pro. Add custom regex patterns in the popup settings. Useful for internal tokens, API keys with custom formats, or company-specific identifiers.
What is universal mode?
By default, API Key Leak Intercept only runs on known AI chat sites. Universal mode (available on Pro and in team/IT settings) extends detection to every website. Use it when you want to catch secrets pasted into any input field on any site.
Can IT force-install this on all company machines?
Yes. API Key Leak Intercept supports Chrome Enterprise Policy deployment. IT can force-install it via Group Policy (Windows), MDM (Mac/Linux), or Chrome Enterprise Console. Once force-installed, employees cannot uninstall it. See the IT admin guide for the rollout steps.
Is it open source?
Yes. The full source is on GitHub. Read it before you install it. That is the right thing to do with any browser extension.
How much does it cost?
Free covers API key detection on every supported AI chat site and warns on every secret it finds, with no monthly cap. Pro is $7.99 a month or $59 a year and adds PII detection, custom patterns, redaction, and history. Teams pay per seat. The upgrade page has the full breakdown.
Install it once.
Stop leaking secrets.
About 51 KB of JavaScript and no frameworks. It does one job and runs silently on every AI chat from the moment you install it.
Free forever and open source, no account required. Privacy policy · Roadmap · Changelog · Built by Dario Cositore
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