I almost exposed env. secrets during a screen share — so I built denied.live
There I was, on a production-incident call. Multiple stakeholders, some technical, many non-technical. I hit Ctrl + O to open the .env file… and the screen-share revealed all the variables and their values. A moment of panic: the “should-this-be-visible” question flashed across the room. Because yes — that happens when you’re live in front of people you wouldn’t normally trust with secrets.
I thought: there has to be a better way. And I built Denied.live to solve exactly this problem.
The problem
Working as a software/DevOps engineer, my tools assume full visibility. In team calls, pair programming, demos — environment files are open and visible. But many of those files contain sensitive values: API keys, tokens, credentials, URLs.
Screen sharing amplifies the risk: even if you intend to hide them, you might forget, you might pause the call, the audience might shift. I had to stop the share, reopen the file, hide variables, then resume.
Minutes lost. Flow broken.
What denied.live does?
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Installed on Visual Studio Code (and also works on Cursor).
Once your workspace loads, as soon as an environment file (.env, .env.local, .env.development, etc) is opened, the extension immediately hides the values of all variables—leaving keys visible. You’ll see KEY=******** plus inline buttons: show value, copy value, copy key+value.
So during a screen share you only expose what you intend to (the keys) and keep the sensitive bits concealed until/unless you explicitly show them.
Why it matters
- Maintains privacy during shared sessions.
- Prevents accidental disclosure of secrets.
- Lets you remain productive without constantly stopping screen-shares to prepare.
- Better control over who sees what, when.
What’s next?
- Add richer features: comments & descriptions for env keys, categorisation of variables (e.g., “production”, “test”), formatting helpers.
- Bulk operations: “hide/show all” toggle, keyboard shortcuts.
- Enhance UX: custom hide-styles (stars, text placeholders), theme compatibility.
Final thoughts
You build tools for what annoys you. This one was born out of “stop the share, reopen file, hide secrets, restart share”. If you ever find yourself in a meeting where your screen reveals more than it should — Denied.live is the guardrail.
No fluff, no hype, just less risk.
