Secure Paste

Problem: Developers routinely paste code containing API keys, tokens, database credentials, and private keys into AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini — accidentally leaking sensitive secrets to third-party services with no warning or protection.

Solution: Built Secure Paste, a Chrome extension that automatically intercepts paste events on AI platforms, detects secrets using 33 built-in regex patterns, replaces them with reversible masked tokens in real-time, and restores original values when copying AI responses back — all processed 100% locally with no cloud involvement.

Key Features:

• 🔐 33 Detection Patterns: Covers AWS keys, GitHub/GitLab tokens, JWT/Bearer tokens, OpenAI/Stripe/Slack API keys, RSA/SSH/PGP private keys, PostgreSQL/MongoDB/Redis URLs, and more — across 8 toggleable categories
• ⚡ Real-time Masking: Secrets replaced instantly on paste with reversible tagged tokens (e.g. [AWS_KEY#a3f7]) before the AI platform ever sees the content
• 🔄 Automatic Restoration: Copying AI responses via Ctrl+C or platform copy buttons automatically restores original secret values into the clipboard
• 🎯 5 Platform Support: Pre-configured for ChatGPT, Claude, Google Gemini, Perplexity, and Grok with per-site enable/disable control
• ⚙️ Custom Patterns: Full regex support for adding company-specific secret patterns with per-pattern usage statistics
• 🔒 Zero Trust Architecture: 100% local processing — no servers, no telemetry, no cloud, minimal permissions (storage only), full open-source audit trail

Technical Implementation:

• Built as a Chrome Manifest V3 extension using TypeScript (strict mode), React 18, Vite 5, and Tailwind CSS
• Implemented content scripts that intercept paste events and walk the DOM to find and replace secret patterns before input reaches AI platform text fields
• Designed a bidirectional masking engine: forward pass replaces secrets with tagged tokens keyed by short hash; reverse pass restores originals on clipboard copy
• Architected 8 category groups (Cloud, API tokens, Private keys, Passwords, Database, Network, PII, Custom) with individual toggles stored via Chrome storage API
• Wrote 33 production-grade regex patterns covering broad secret formats with context-aware matching to minimize false positives
• Published to Chrome Web Store with production build pipeline via Vite and TypeScript type-checking enforced in CI

Impact: Delivered a published Chrome extension that silently protects developers from credential leaks on every AI paste — zero config, zero cloud, 33 pattern classes, live on the Chrome Web Store.