NEXT_PUBLIC_ leaked your openai api key into the App Router bundle

Why Next.js does this

A server component can read `process.env.STRIPE_SECRET_KEY` safely. Move that same line into a client component and the build fails to find it, so the quickest fix — rename it with `NEXT_PUBLIC_` — is also the one that inlines it into the JavaScript every visitor downloads.

Confirm it first

Before rotating anything, check whether the key is actually being served. Paste your deployed URL — KeyDrift downloads the same JavaScript a visitor gets and tells you what is in it.

Rotate the key

Do this before changing any code. The key has been served to browsers, cached by CDNs and very likely scraped already — removing it from the source does not un-publish it.

1. 1Revoke the key at platform.openai.com/api-keys.
2. 2Check usage for the billing period — exposed keys are usually found by scrapers within minutes, and the charge lands before the alert does.
3. 3Put the API call behind a server route with your own rate limiting, so a leaked route costs less than a leaked key.

Move the call to a server

The replacement key must not follow the old one into the bundle, which means the code that uses it cannot live in the browser. Any variable named NEXT_PUBLIC_… is inlined at build time by design — the prefix is the mechanism, not a mistake.

// app/components/Chat.tsx  ("use client")
// NEXT_PUBLIC_ inlines this into the browser bundle.
const key = process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_OPENAI_API_KEY;
const result = await new OpenAI({ apiKey: key }).chat.completions.create(body);

// app/api/chat/route.ts  — runs on the server only
import 'server-only';

export async function POST(request: Request) {
  const key = process.env.OPENAI_API_KEY; // no NEXT_PUBLIC_ prefix
  const result = await new OpenAI({ apiKey: key }).chat.completions.create(body);
  return Response.json(result);
}

// app/components/Chat.tsx  ("use client")
const result = await fetch('/api/chat', { method: 'POST' }).then((r) => r.json());

How KeyDrift detects it

Matches the modern `sk-proj-`, `sk-admin-` and `sk-svcacct-` prefixes over the full base64url alphabet, so a key containing `-` or `_` is captured whole rather than truncated at the first one.