# thoughtworks/talisman

Using a pre-commit hook, Talisman validates the outgoing changeset for things that look suspicious — such as tokens, passwords, and private keys.

Repository: https://github.com/thoughtworks/talisman
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/talisman
Homepage: http://thoughtworks.github.io/talisman/
Language: Go
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: git-hooks, scans, secret, husky, potential-secrets, pre-commit, hacktoberfest, git, pre-push, secrets
Last push: 2026-03-01T22:36:44+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 66/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 70, release rhythm 40, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3915, "days_push": 185, "days_rel": 488, "gap_med": 4.5, "n_releases_24m": 11}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2096, forks 252 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:13.270721+00:00)

## What it is
Talisman is a Go-based CLI tool that installs a git pre-commit/pre-push hook to scan outgoing changesets for potential secrets such as tokens, passwords, SSH keys, and private keys. It also includes a git history scanner to detect secrets already committed to a repository.

## Use cases
- prevent secrets from being committed to git
- scan git history for leaked credentials
- detect ssh keys and tokens in changesets
- add secret scanning to pre-commit or husky hooks
- block suspicious files before pushing to remote

## When to choose
- you want to stop secrets leaving developer workstations before they reach a remote
- you need a lightweight git hook-based secret scanner
- you want to audit existing repo history for committed secrets

## When to avoid
- you need full repository-wide continuous secret scanning in CI at scale
- you need runtime secrets management or vaulting rather than detection

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: security, vulnerability-scanning, cli, developer-tools
- domain: security, developer-tools, version-control, privacy
- platform: windows, cli
- tags: git-hooks, pre-commit, secrets-detection, secret-scanning, husky, pre-push, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- thoughtworks/talisman (main) score 66

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:13.270721+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:54:38.247139+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/thoughtworks/talisman (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:13.270721+00:00, sha 16b07909822a)
  - homepage: http://thoughtworks.github.io/talisman/ (fetched 2026-08-29T10:34:53.630228+00:00, sha 900e566aefee)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.