Shush

A thedevlabs-io VS Code extension that opens secret files — .env, Cloudflare .dev.vars, JSON configs like firebase.json — in a redacted editor: keys stay visible, values are masked as •••••••• until you choose to reveal them. Secrets never render on screen, so an accidental open during a call, screen share, or with someone next to you leaks nothing.

How it works

Shush registers a custom editor and makes it the default for its built-in patterns, so VS Code hands the file to the extension instead of the plain text editor — there's no flash of the raw file. You see:

API_KEY        ••••••••••••••  👁
DATABASE_URL   ••••••••••••••  👁

• 👁 per row — reveal/hide a single value.
• Reveal all / Hide all — toggle every value at once.
• + Add value — add a new variable without leaving the redacted editor.
• Open as text — reopen in the normal text editor when you need to.

Values are editable in place; edits are written back to the file. JSON files are parsed and every leaf value is masked under its key path (e.g. hosting.public). Env comment (#) and blank lines are ignored.

Built-in patterns

**/.env, **/.env.*, **/*.env, **/.dev.vars, **/.dev.vars.*

These open redacted by default, with no flash.

Adding your own files

Some teams keep secrets in other files (firebase.json, *.secrets.json, …). Add them two ways:

1. Command palette → Shush: Protect this file (add to .shushrc.json) while the file is open. It writes the pattern to a project config file you commit.
2. Settings → shush.patterns (array of globs). Workspace or user scoped.

.shushrc.json — shared, committed config

{
  "patterns": ["**/firebase.json", "**/*.secrets.json"]
}

Commit this to the repo. When a teammate opens the project, Shush reads it on startup (and watches it for changes) and protects those files automatically.

Note: built-in patterns open with zero flash. Files added via .shushrc.json / settings are swapped into the redacted editor when opened, so there is a brief moment where VS Code may paint the raw file before the swap. This is a VS Code limitation — custom-editor file associations can't be changed at runtime. Keep true secrets in .env / .dev.vars where possible.

Adding values

+ Add value in the editor toolbar asks for the name, then the value — and the value prompt is a password field, so a new secret never renders on screen either.

• env — appends KEY=VALUE. Names must look like env keys and must not already exist in the file; newlines in a value are collapsed so a pasted value can't inject extra variables.
• JSON — pick the object or array to add to, then the key. Arrays append (no key needed). Existing keys are refused rather than overwritten.

JSON caveat: editing or adding in a JSON file re-serialises the whole document, so original formatting is normalised and integers beyond 2⁵³ lose precision. Both were true of editing before this release; open such a file as text if that matters.

Version history (off by default)

Turn on shush.history.enabled and Shush keeps a snapshot of each protected file every time you save it, so you can look back at what a value used to be. The History button in the toolbar (pinned to the top of the editor, so it stays reachable however far down the file you are) lists versions, each with two actions:

• Diff — a key-level diff in its own tab: which keys were added, removed or changed between that version and the current file, both values side by side. Values stay masked; reveal them one at a time or all at once. Unchanged keys are hidden until you ask for them.
• Restore — opens that same diff first, so you see exactly what would change, then confirms. The current contents are snapshotted before the write, so a restore is itself reversible.

The diff tab drives everything from two dropdowns:

From [ 7 Aug 09:14 ▾ ]  →  To [ current file ▾ ]   ⇄ Swap   Restore the "From" version

Either side can be any stored version or the current file, so you can compare any two points without going back to the list — added always means present in To, absent in From. Set From to "— nothing" to show a single version on its own. Changing either side re-masks every value.

Why not VS Code's diff editor? It's a plain text editor, so diffing two .env versions would render every secret — old and new — in the clear, in a tab that's easy to leave open on a call. A key-level diff is also the more useful unit for a secrets file: you want to know which keys changed, not which lines moved.

This is a copy of your secrets that outlives the file, so it's built to fail safe:

• Off unless you turn it on, and the setting is user-scoped only ("scope": "application") — a committed .vscode/settings.json cannot switch it on for a teammate. The first time you enable it, Shush tells you where the data goes and offers to turn it back off.
• Never written to the workspace or any file Shush controls. Snapshots live in VS Code's SecretStorage, so there is nothing for git to pick up.
• Keeps the last shush.history.maxVersions (default 10) per file, skips files over 256 KB, and only ever snapshots files you've actually opened in the redacted editor.
• Turning history back off asks whether to delete what it already collected, and Shush: Delete all stored version history purges everything at any time.
• If the credential store can't be written, Shush warns you rather than silently keeping nothing.

Where snapshots are stored, per platform

SecretStorage is VS Code's own secret store, and its strength depends on the OS:

On Linux without a keyring available (some minimal desktops, WSL, containers, SSH sessions), VS Code falls back to a weaker local encryption store — the key sits next to the data, so it stops anyone casually reading the file and not much more. On any platform the data is readable by code already running as you. If that's not a trade you want, leave history off; the rest of Shush is unaffected.

Develop / run locally

npm install
npm run build      # bundle to dist/extension.js

Press F5 to launch an Extension Development Host.

Package & install

npm run package    # produces shush-<version>.vsix
code --install-extension shush-0.2.0.vsix

Or Extensions view → … → Install from VSIX….

License

MIT © thedevlabs-io