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 checkout hardening in a read-only CI job; no application or auth logic changes.

Overview
The public-repo-guard workflow’s actions/checkout step now sets persist-credentials: false, so the job’s GITHUB_TOKEN is not written into .git/config for later steps to read.

That matches how other CI workflows in this repo handle checkout and closes the gap in this security gate: the job only needs a read-only tree for gitleaks and content-policy.sh, and it already downloads and runs a pinned gitleaks binary—so keeping credentials out of the workspace aligns with the workflow’s stated tamper/MITM concerns.

^{Reviewed by Cursor Bugbot for commit c27bf10. Configure here.}

Note

Stop persisting the job token in .git/config in the public-repo guard CI workflow

Sets persist-credentials: false on the actions/checkout step in public-repo-guard.yml so the GitHub job token is not written to the local git config during the workflow run.

^{Macroscope summarized c27bf10.}

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(requestId: serverGenReqId_81545d65-9254-4332-8594-616c7756063c)

[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 c27bf10

Minor CI security hardening that adds persist-credentials: false to the checkout step. This is a standard GitHub Actions best practice with no runtime impact. The author owns this workflow file.

^{You can customize Macroscope's approvability policy. Learn more.}

[qodo-code-review]

PR Summary by Qodo

Harden public-repo-guard checkout by disabling credential persistence

🐞 Bug fix ⚙️ Configuration changes 🕐 Less than 5 minutes

AI Description

• Disable actions/checkout credential persistence in the public-repo-guard job
• Prevent GITHUB_TOKEN from being written to .git/config for later steps
• Align the workflow’s security gate with its tamper/MITM threat model

Diagram

graph TD
  wf["public-repo-guard.yml"] --> runner(["GitHub Actions job"]) --> co["actions/checkout (persist-credentials: false)"] --> ws[("Workspace (no token in .git/config)")] --> dl["Download pinned gitleaks"] --> run["Run gitleaks --no-git"] --> cp["Run content-policy.sh"]
  subgraph Legend
    direction LR
    _file["Workflow file"] ~~~ _job(["Job/runner"]) ~~~ _store[("Workspace state")]
  end

Loading

High-Level Assessment

The chosen approach is the right mitigation: persist-credentials: false is the standard, minimal change to prevent GITHUB_TOKEN from being written into .git/config while preserving normal checkout behavior for a read-only job.

Files changed (1) +2 / -0

Other (1) +2 / -0

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

Disable checkout credential persistence for public-repo-guard

• Adds 'persist-credentials: false' to the 'actions/checkout' step so the job token is not stored in '.git/config'. This reduces exposure of 'GITHUB_TOKEN' to subsequent steps in a workflow that downloads and executes tooling.

.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

_{To customize comments, go to the Qodo configuration screen, or learn more in the docs.}

[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.

_{Re-trigger cubic}

[yakimoto]

This PR is redundant with #80 (chore/guard-canonical-sync), which is already open and already contains this exact change.

Evidence — #80'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

#80 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 — #80 was already open. Merge #80 instead.