fix(ci): do not persist the job token in .git/config in the public-repo guard

[yakimoto]

Why

actions/checkout without persist-credentials: false writes the job's GITHUB_TOKEN into
.git/config, where any later step — or anything those steps execute — can read it. This is the
security gate that DOWNLOADS AND EXECUTES the gitleaks binary, and the workflow's own comment
already reasons about tampered downloads ("so a tampered or MITM'd download can never execute
inside the security gate"), so the threat model is written down and only the credential half of
the mitigation is missing. Found by zizmor as warning[artipacked]: credential persistence through GitHub Actions artifacts.

Safety

Verified this job only: checks out, installs gitleaks (pinned + checksum), runs
gitleaks detect --no-git, installs ripgrep, runs content-policy.sh. permissions: contents: read. Nothing pushes, calls gh, or reads GITHUB_TOKEN/GH_TOKEN, so the token was never needed
in .git/config in the first place.

Refs wave-av/claude-workstation#1870.

---

Note

Low Risk
Single workflow hardening with no change to scan logic or permissions; aligns with other workflows that already disable credential persistence.

Overview
Sets persist-credentials: false on the actions/checkout step in the public-repo-guard workflow so the job’s GITHUB_TOKEN is not written into .git/config.

That matters because later steps download and run the pinned gitleaks binary and execute content-policy.sh; anything in those paths could otherwise read credentials from git config. The workflow already treats tampered downloads as part of the threat model; this closes the credential-persistence gap flagged by zizmor (artipacked). The job only needs contents: read and does not push or use gh, so omitting persisted credentials does not change intended behavior.

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Review details

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Configuration used: Organization UI

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 0e79241 and e140fba.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• .github/workflows/public-repo-guard.yml

---

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[devin-ai-integration]

✅ Devin Review: No Issues Found

Devin Review analyzed this PR and found no bugs or issues to report.

[macroscopeapp]

Approvability

Verdict: Approved e140fba

This is a minimal CI security hardening change adding persist-credentials: false to the checkout action, following standard best practices. No runtime behavior changes, and the author owns this workflow file.

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[qodo-code-review]

PR Summary by Qodo

Harden public-repo guard CI: disable checkout credential persistence

🐞 Bug fix ⚙️ Configuration changes 🕐 Less than 10 minutes

AI Description

• Disable Actions checkout credential persistence to avoid writing job token into ".git/config".
• Reduce token exposure for later workflow steps that download and execute tools.

Diagram

graph TD
  A["public-repo-guard job"] --> B["actions/checkout"] --> C[(".git/config")]
  B --> D["Security-gated steps (gitleaks/content-policy)"]
  C -. "avoid persisted token" .-> D

Loading

High-Level Assessment

The following are alternative approaches to this PR:

1. Remove checkout token entirely (token: "")

• ➕ Eliminates any possibility of token use during checkout
• ➖ Can break private submodule/LFS fetches if ever added
• ➖ Less common pattern than persist-credentials: false; may surprise maintainers

2. Isolate git config for the job (GIT_CONFIG_GLOBAL=/dev/null, HOME override)

• ➕ Reduces accidental reuse of credentials/config across steps
• ➖ More complex and brittle; easy to regress
• ➖ Does not directly address Actions checkout’s persisted credential behavior as clearly

Recommendation: Keep the PR’s approach: setting persist-credentials: false on actions/checkout is the standard, low-friction mitigation that directly prevents writing the job token to .git/config, aligning with the workflow’s existing supply-chain threat model without adding operational complexity.

Files changed (1) +2 / -0

Other (1) +2 / -0

public-repo-guard.ymlDisable checkout credential persistence for public-repo guard job +2/-0

Disable checkout credential persistence for public-repo guard job

• Adds 'persist-credentials: false' to the 'actions/checkout' step so the GitHub job token is not stored in '.git/config'. This reduces the risk of later steps (including downloaded tooling) reading the token from local git configuration.

.github/workflows/public-repo-guard.yml

[qodo-code-review]

Code Review by Qodo

🐞 Bugs (0) 📘 Rule violations (0) 📎 Requirement gaps (0)

Great, no issues found!

Qodo reviewed your code and found no material issues that require review

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[qodo-code-review]

Qodo Fixer

No findings are available for this PR yet. Findings appear here once Qodo has reviewed the PR.

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 1 file

Confidence score: 5/5

• Automated review surfaced no issues in the provided summaries.
• No files require special attention.

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[yakimoto]

This PR is redundant with #24 (chore/guard-canonical-sync), which is already open and already contains this exact change.

Evidence — #24's diff to .github/workflows/public-repo-guard.yml includes:

+          # tree. Nothing here pushes -- the scan is `--no-git` over the working tree --
+          # so no step needs authenticated Git; drop it. (zizmor: artipacked)
+          persist-credentials: false

#24 is also broader than this PR: it syncs the whole vendored public-repo-guard trio to
the canonical source (wave-foundation/scaffolder/public-repo-guard) byte-for-byte, verified by
git blob SHA, rather than adding this one line in isolation.

Closing as redundant. This duplicate exists because the fan-out that opened this PR
(refs claude-workstation#1870) did not check for in-flight PRs touching the same file before
going out — #24 was already open. Merge #24 instead.