diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 35f5562..c9ec7a2 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -18,6 +18,8 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
 ### Fixed
 
+- Fixed bash `local: can only be used in a function` errors that appeared on every scan invocation. The simple-pattern runner loop uses `local` in top-level scope; replaced with plain variable assignments
+
 - N+1 pattern findings now include the actual source code line in the report. Previously the `code` field was empty because `find_meta_in_loop_line` only returned the line number without extracting the source text
 
 ### Tests
diff --git a/dist/bin/check-performance.sh b/dist/bin/check-performance.sh
index 81a9f78..3c9b1c2 100755
--- a/dist/bin/check-performance.sh
+++ b/dist/bin/check-performance.sh
@@ -6054,10 +6054,10 @@ if [ -n "$SIMPLE_PATTERNS" ]; then
         include_args="--include=*.php"
       fi
 
-      local exclude_file_globs=""
-      local exclude_line_patterns=""
-      local exclude_file_contains=""
-      local current_exclusion_block=""
+      exclude_file_globs=""
+      exclude_line_patterns=""
+      exclude_file_contains=""
+      current_exclusion_block=""
 
       while IFS= read -r json_line; do
         case "$json_line" in