_run_approval_gate's gateway branch only queued via submit_pending, so
plugin-escalated approvals never sent the interactive embed+buttons on
Discord/Telegram/Slack (#59413) - the user was never notified and the
action stayed silently blocked. Mirror check_dangerous_command's path:
when a session notify callback is registered, run the blocking
_await_gateway_decision round-trip (redacted payload, once/session/
always persistence, deny/timeout produce definitive BLOCKED outcomes);
fall back to submit_pending only when no callback exists.
Fixes#59413.
Adds approvals.deny to config.yaml — a list of fnmatch globs matched
against terminal commands. A match blocks unconditionally, BEFORE the
--yolo / /yolo / approvals.mode=off bypass, making it the user-editable
counterpart to the code-shipped hardline blocklist.
- Checked in both command gates (check_dangerous_command and
check_all_command_guards), after the hardline floor and sudo-stdin
guard, before the yolo bypass and permanent allowlist.
- Matching runs over the same normalized/deobfuscated command variants
as the dangerous-pattern detector, case-insensitive.
- Opt-in: empty/absent list is a no-op; behavior unchanged.
Supersedes the trust-engine approach from #21500 with a minimal
config-native design: the only capability the existing stack lacked
was deny-that-beats-yolo. Allow already exists (command_allowlist),
ask already exists (session approvals).
Follow-up to #56236: the broadened root token /[/.]*\** treats any run of
dots after the root slash as a collapse spelling, so a literal root-level
directory named '...' (rm -rf /...) was unconditionally hardline-blocked
with no approval path. Tighten the token to /(?:(?:\.\.?)?/)*(?:\.\.?)?\**
so each inter-slash segment must be exactly '.' or '..' — all real collapse
spellings (//, /., /./, /.., //*, ///, /../..) stay on the hardline floor
while literal dot-run dirs fall through to the softer DANGEROUS_PATTERNS
rules like every other real path.
* feat(approvals): /deny <reason> relays denial reason to the agent
Port from qwibitai/nanoclaw#2832 (reject with reason).
Gateway /deny now accepts an optional trailing reason (/deny <reason>
or /deny all <reason>). The reason rides on the per-session approval
entry through resolve_gateway_approval -> _await_gateway_decision and is
appended to the BLOCKED tool result the agent receives, so a declined
agent can adapt instead of only hearing 'denied'.
Adapted to hermes-agent's synchronous single-command /deny model: no DB
state, no second-message capture step, no migration. Reason is capped at
280 chars and threaded through both the terminal-command guard and the
execute_code guard. Plain /deny and the approve paths are unchanged.
- tools/approval.py: _ApprovalEntry.reason; resolve_gateway_approval gains
optional reason; _await_gateway_decision returns it; both gateway BLOCKED
messages include it
- gateway/slash_commands.py: parse leading 'all' + trailing reason
- locales/en.yaml: deny.denied_reason_{singular,plural}
- hermes_cli/commands.py: /deny args_hint '[all] [reason]'
- tests: 3 new (with-reason, all+reason, plain-deny regression)
* fix(ci): localize deny-reason keys across all locales + update interrupt-path assertions
CI surfaced two enforced invariants broken by the deny-with-reason change:
- test_i18n catalog-parity requires every locale to carry the same keys as
en.yaml with matching placeholders. Added deny.denied_reason_singular/plural
(with {count}/{reason}) to all 15 non-English locales.
- test_approval_interrupt asserts the exact dict from _await_gateway_decision,
which now carries a 'reason' key (None on the interrupt/timeout paths).
Extend the pre_tool_call plugin hook return contract with a new directive:
{"action": "approve", "message": "why this needs human confirmation"}
Previously a pre_tool_call hook could only veto a tool call (action: block)
or allow it silently. It could not escalate to the existing human-approval
flow. This unlocks user-defined runtime approval rules on ANY tool (HTTP
writes, file writes to sensitive paths, email sends), enforced at runtime —
resolving #51221 as a pure plugin, with no core approval.py rule schema.
Mechanism:
- get_pre_tool_call_directive() returns (action, message) for block|approve;
get_pre_tool_call_block_message() kept as a block-only back-compat shim.
- resolve_pre_tool_block() is the single dispatch-site chokepoint: fetches
the directive and, for approve, invokes the human gate; fail-closed to a
block on denial, timeout, or gate exception. ALL FOUR tool-dispatch sites
now call it: tool_executor (concurrent + sequential), agent_runtime_helpers,
and model_tools.handle_function_call.
- request_tool_approval() escalates via the SAME machinery as Tier-2
dangerous commands: session/permanent allowlist, prompt_dangerous_approval
(CLI) / submit_pending (gateway), [o]nce/[s]ession/[a]lways/[d]eny,
timeout fail-closed, approvals.cron_mode for cron contexts.
Architecture: extracted the shared decision core into _run_approval_gate(),
called by BOTH check_dangerous_command() and request_tool_approval() so the
fail-closed / cron / gateway / yolo / persist policy lives in ONE place and
cannot drift. Fixed a latent divergence — the plugin path now honors --yolo.
Approval grain: [a]lways is keyed on tool_name + a hash of the reason (an
explicit plugin rule_key overrides), so distinct reasons on the same tool
persist independently instead of one 'always' blanketing the whole tool.
Non-interactive: cron honors approvals.cron_mode (parity with commands); any
other non-interactive non-gateway context fails CLOSED for the plugin path
(the command path keeps its historical fail-open default, unchanged).
No new config schema, no new env vars, no new hook events.
Self-review follow-up on the salvaged approval-routing fix.
The initial adaptation re-read os.getenv("HERMES_YOLO_MODE") at session-build
time. That diverges from the repo's security invariant: HERMES_YOLO_MODE is
frozen into tools.approval._YOLO_MODE_FROZEN at import time precisely so a skill
running mid-process cannot set the env var and instantly flip the approval
bypass (a prompt-injection escalation path). A live re-read re-opened that hole
for the codex routing path.
- Add tools.approval.is_approval_bypass_active() — the canonical three-source
bypass check (frozen --yolo/HERMES_YOLO_MODE + session /yolo + approvals.mode
off) in one place. This is the 4th inline copy of that OR-chain (the three
sites in approval.py and tui_gateway/server.py:3121 all use the same idiom);
the helper is the shared chokepoint they can collapse onto.
- codex_runtime.py now calls is_approval_bypass_active() instead of the
hand-rolled mode-or-session check plus a runtime env re-read.
- Update the env-yolo test to patch _YOLO_MODE_FROZEN (the canonical test
pattern, e.g. tests/tools/test_yolo_mode.py) rather than setenv, which is
dead-on-arrival against the frozen constant.
Fail-closed default preserved on every branch; 28 integration + 77 session/yolo
tests pass; E2E confirms the real exec decision flips decline->accept only when
bypass is active.
git's and sudo's option parsers resolve unambiguous long-flag prefixes, so
`git reset --har`, `git branch --delete --force`, and `sudo --stdi`/`--ask`
execute identically to their full-flag forms while evading the exact-string
DANGEROUS_PATTERNS regexes that gate them. Verified live against real git
and sudo binaries. Widen the patterns to accept unambiguous abbreviations,
scoped narrowly enough to avoid colliding with sibling flags (--help,
--soft/--mixed/--merge/--keep, --shell/--set-home).
Rework follow-up on the Windows destructive-shell detection. The PowerShell
pattern required an explicit -Command/-c before the verb, but PowerShell runs
the verb as the DEFAULT POSITIONAL arg — so `powershell Remove-Item -Recurse
-Force C:\x` (no -Command) slipped through, the exact case the PR body claims
to close. Also missing the canonical `ri` alias.
Anchor the verb to the command position (after the shell name + any leading
-Flag switches + optional -Command/-c) so bare invocations are caught while a
benign path arg containing 'del'/'rm' (e.g. -File c:\del-logs\run.ps1) is not.
Add ri to the verb list. Mutation-verified regression tests for the bare
invocation, ri alias, and the benign-path negative.
Wrapping a catastrophic command in a bare subshell or brace group walked
straight past the unconditional hardline floor -- even under --yolo,
/yolo, approvals.mode=off, and cron approve mode. The command-substitution
forms were already caught; the bare paren / brace-group forms were the gap.
Rather than add the paren and brace openers to the flat _CMDPOS pattern
class (which cannot tell a real subshell opener from one sitting inside a
quoted argument, and would false-positive on ordinary prose such as a PR
title that merely mentions the trigger word), teach the existing
QUOTE-AWARE command-start tokenizer (_iter_shell_command_starts) to treat
the paren and brace openers as command starts, then emit a detection
variant that marks each real command start with a newline (already a
_CMDPOS separator). Openers inside quotes never register as starts, so
quoted arguments are left untouched while real subshell/brace bypasses now
anchor. One place covers every _CMDPOS rule (shutdown/reboot/init/
systemctl/telinit and the rm root/home/system floor).
Tests: subshell/brace bypasses added to the hardline-block, root-wipe, and
yolo-bypass sets; a regression set asserts quoted paren/brace prose is NOT
blocked (guards our own gh-pr-create workflow).
rm -rf //, /., /./, /.. and //* all resolve to / in the shell but slipped
past the root-filesystem hardline pattern, whose target group only matched
the literal / and /* tokens. They fell to the softer DANGEROUS_PATTERNS
'delete in root path' rule, which --yolo / approvals.mode=off / cron
approve-mode are designed to bypass — leaving the one unconditional floor
open to a full root wipe under yolo.
Broaden the root token from '/|/\\*|/ \\*' to '/[/.]*\\**' inside
_hardline_rm_path so any root-anchored path whose components collapse back
to / (repeated slashes plus ./.. segments) with an optional trailing glob
is caught. A trailing real segment (/tmp, /home, /.ssh) still fails to
match and stays with the softer rules.
Co-authored-by: kernel-t1 <214165399+kernel-t1@users.noreply.github.com>
## What does this PR do?
Closes a critical bypass of the dangerous-command approval system. The
normalizer that every command passes through before pattern matching
(`_normalize_command_for_detection`) already strips ANSI, null bytes,
fullwidth Unicode, backslash escapes and empty-quote token splits — but
it did nothing about the shell `IFS` variable. In any POSIX shell `$IFS`
and `${IFS}` expand to whitespace, so a command written as
`rm${IFS}-rf${IFS}/` is executed by the live shell as `rm -rf /` while
the detection regexes — which anchor on literal `\s` between a command and
its arguments — never fire.
The impact is severe: this evades BOTH layers at once. It slips past every
entry in `DANGEROUS_PATTERNS` (so `curl${IFS}...|sh`, `sed${IFS}-i`
against `~/.hermes/config.yaml`, sudo privilege flags, etc. auto-run with
no approval prompt) AND the unconditional hardline floor that is
documented as un-bypassable "not even with --yolo" (`rm -rf /`, `mkfs`,
`dd` to a raw block device, `shutdown`/`reboot`, fork bomb). A
prompt-injected or malicious instruction could wipe the host filesystem or
power the box off while the approval system reports nothing. Confirmed at
runtime before the fix: `detect_hardline_command('rm${IFS}-rf /')` returned
`(False, None)`.
The fix mirrors the shell's own expansion: it collapses `$IFS` / `${IFS}`
(including the bash substring form `${IFS:0:1}`) to a single space inside
the existing de-obfuscation block, so the whitespace-anchored patterns
match exactly as they do for the un-obfuscated command. It is deliberately
narrow and safe — a `\b` word boundary keeps it from touching unrelated
variables like `$IFSACONFIG`, so it cannot introduce false positives on
legitimate commands.
## Related Issue
N/A
## Type of Change
- [x] 🔒 Security fix
## Changes Made
- `tools/approval.py`: in `_normalize_command_for_detection`, substitute
`$IFS` / `${IFS}` (and `${IFS:...}`) expansions with a literal space
before dangerous/hardline pattern matching, alongside the existing
backslash and empty-quote de-obfuscation.
- `tests/tools/test_approval.py`: add `TestIFSWhitespaceBypass` covering
the brace, bare and substring IFS forms against both
`detect_hardline_command` and `detect_dangerous_command`, plus
regression guards that a look-alike variable (`$IFSACONFIG`) and plain
safe commands are not flagged. Import `detect_hardline_command`.
## How to Test
1. Reproduce the hole (pre-fix): `detect_hardline_command('rm${IFS}-rf /')`
returns `(False, None)` and `detect_dangerous_command(...)` returns
`(False, ...)`, i.e. a host-destroying command is auto-approved.
2. With the fix applied, both now flag the command: hardline match
"recursive delete of root filesystem" and dangerous match "delete in
root path".
3. Run the suite: `pytest tests/tools/test_approval.py
tests/tools/test_hardline_blocklist.py -q` — the new
`TestIFSWhitespaceBypass` cases pass and nothing else regresses.
## Checklist
### Code
- [x] I've read the Contributing Guide
- [x] My commit messages follow Conventional Commits (`fix(scope):`, etc.)
- [x] I searched for existing PRs to make sure this isn't a duplicate
- [x] My PR contains **only** changes related to this fix (no unrelated commits)
- [x] I've run the relevant tests and they pass (two pre-existing failures
are environmental: missing optional deps in the minimal venv, not
caused by this change)
- [x] I've added tests for my changes
- [x] I've tested on my platform: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.5)
### Documentation & Housekeeping
- [x] I've updated relevant documentation (README, `docs/`, docstrings) — or N/A
- [x] I've updated `cli-config.yaml.example` if I added/changed config keys — or N/A
- [x] I've updated `CONTRIBUTING.md` or `AGENTS.md` if I changed architecture or workflows — or N/A
- [x] I've considered cross-platform impact (Windows, macOS) — the change is a
pure string transform with no platform-specific behavior; footgun gate passes
- [x] I've updated tool descriptions/schemas if I changed tool behavior — or N/A
A literal "rm -rf /" carried as DATA inside another command's quoted
argument — a PR title, a git commit -m message, an echo/printf arg —
tripped the unconditional root-filesystem hardline and could not run at
all. `gh pr create --title "block rm -rf / spellings"` was blocked
outright, because the bare rm path branch matched the mid-string "rm"
(via \brm) with the space after "/" satisfying its (\s|$) terminator.
Anchor the shared _RM_FLAG_PREFIX to _CMDPOS so the rm hardline rules
fire only when rm is an actual command word (start of line, after a
separator ; && || |, after a subshell opener $()/backtick, or after
sudo/env/exec wrappers) — not when the string appears as an argument
value. Broaden the bare-path terminator to also accept shell
metacharacters ) ` ; | & so a real wipe inside a command substitution
is still caught.
The quoted-path branch is unchanged, so quoted root/HOME paths stay
blocked. Adds regression tests for both directions: data-arg false
positives must NOT block, real wipes at every command position must block.
echo <base64> | base64 -d | bash (and base32/base16, xxd -r, tr
transforms, openssl base64/enc -d) decode a dangerous command at
runtime — the raw text carries no dangerous keyword, so the denylist
never fired. Adds DANGEROUS_PATTERNS entries for decode-and-execute
pipes into a shell.
eval $(curl ...), source $(wget ...), and . $(curl ...) executed
remote content but were not covered by the existing pipe-to-shell /
process-substitution patterns. Adds a DANGEROUS_PATTERNS entry so these
command-substitution forms consistently request approval.
Original authorship preserved from PR #26965 (bot-authored commit
re-attributed to the human contributor).
Command-name obfuscation bypassed the dangerous-command denylist: the
executable name could be spelled with shell tricks that survive regex
matching but still resolve to a blocked command at runtime —
$(echo rm), ${0/x/r}m, backticks, and printf substitutions.
Adds a non-executing shell-word scanner that deobfuscates only at
command positions (start, after ;|&&||, inside $(...), after
sudo/env/exec/... wrappers) and feeds the resulting variants through
the existing HARDLINE_PATTERNS / DANGEROUS_PATTERNS — no second
blocklist. Scoping to command words keeps ordinary arguments
(echo $(echo rm) -rf /) from being promoted into command names.
Co-authored-by: egilewski <1078345+egilewski@users.noreply.github.com>
`_normalize_command_for_detection` strips backslash-escapes before matching
DANGEROUS_PATTERNS and HARDLINE_PATTERNS, but the strip rule was
`re.sub(r'\\([^\n])', r'\1', ...)` — its `[^\n]` class deliberately skips
newlines. A backslash immediately followed by a newline is a POSIX line
continuation: the shell removes BOTH characters and joins the tokens, so
`rm -rf \<newline>/` executes as `rm -rf /`. With the dangling backslash left
in place, the structured rm/dd/mkfs patterns no longer match because a literal
`\` sits wedged between the tokens they expect to be adjacent.
The worst consequence is on the HARDLINE floor. The dangerous-command layer
still fired here only by accident (the generic `\brm\s+-[^\s]*r` "recursive
delete" rule needs no path), and that layer is bypassed by `--yolo` /
`approvals.mode=off`. The hardline blocklist — the unconditional floor reserved
for catastrophic, unrecoverable commands and meant to hold even under yolo —
anchors the root path directly after the flags, so `rm -rf \<newline>/`,
`rm -r\<newline>f /`, and `rm -rf \<newline>~` all slipped past it entirely.
A yolo session could therefore wipe the root filesystem.
The fix collapses line continuations (`\` + `\n` or `\r\n`) to nothing,
mirroring the shell, before the existing escape strip runs. This was the gap
left by 621bf3a87, which added the escape strip but only for non-newline chars.
## What does this PR do?
Closes a shell line-continuation bypass in the dangerous-command detector.
Before: `rm -rf \<newline>/` normalized to `rm -rf \<newline>/`, so the
hardline root-delete patterns did not match and the command could run under
`--yolo`. After: line continuations are collapsed first, the command
normalizes to `rm -rf /`, and the hardline floor blocks it unconditionally.
## Related Issue
N/A
## Type of Change
- [x] 🔒 Security fix
## Changes Made
- `tools/approval.py`: in `_normalize_command_for_detection`, add
`command = re.sub(r'\\\r?\n', '', command)` ahead of the existing
backslash-escape strip so shell line continuations (`\`+newline, LF or CRLF)
are removed exactly as the shell would, instead of leaving a stray backslash
that breaks the structured patterns.
- `tests/tools/test_hardline_blocklist.py`: add a parametrized
`test_hardline_blocks_line_continuation` covering the root, in-flag, home,
CRLF, and mkfs continuation forms, plus
`test_line_continuation_root_wipe_cannot_bypass_hardline` asserting the
continuation root wipe stays blocked even with `HERMES_YOLO_MODE=1`.
## How to Test
1. Reproduce: stash the `tools/approval.py` change and run
`scripts/run_tests.sh tests/tools/test_hardline_blocklist.py` — the new
line-continuation cases fail (`rm -rf \<newline>/` is not flagged hardline,
and leaks past the floor under yolo).
2. Restore the change and rerun the file — all 106 tests pass.
3. Regression: `scripts/run_tests.sh tests/tools/test_approval.py` (the
existing fullwidth/ANSI/null-byte normalization and multiline cases still
pass).
## Checklist
### Code
- [x] I've read the Contributing Guide
- [x] My commit messages follow Conventional Commits (`fix(scope):`, `feat(scope):`, etc.)
- [x] I searched for existing PRs to make sure this isn't a duplicate
- [x] My PR contains **only** changes related to this fix/feature (no unrelated commits)
- [x] I've run `pytest tests/ -q` and all tests pass
- [x] I've added tests for my changes (required for bug fixes, strongly encouraged for features)
- [x] I've tested on my platform: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.5.0)
### Documentation & Housekeeping
- [x] I've updated relevant documentation (README, `docs/`, docstrings) — or N/A
- [x] I've updated `cli-config.yaml.example` if I added/changed config keys — or N/A
- [x] I've updated `CONTRIBUTING.md` or `AGENTS.md` if I changed architecture or workflows — or N/A
- [x] I've considered cross-platform impact (Windows, macOS) — handles both LF and CRLF line endings
- [x] I've updated tool descriptions/schemas if I changed tool behavior — or N/A
# Conflicts:
# tools/approval.py
The salvaged write-target boundary included `#` in its char class, so a
`#` glued to the redirect/tee path (`echo x > .env#backup`) matched as a
comment boundary and flagged the write as dangerous. But the shell writes
to the distinct file `.env#backup`, not `.env` — a false positive, same
class as the config.yaml.bak case the PR already excluded. Drop `#` from
the boundary; a real trailing comment is always whitespace-preceded (\\s).
Adds regression tests for .env#backup, config.yaml#backup, and
tee .env#backup staying out of the deny.
The dangerous-command approval gate has rules that flag a shell command
when it overwrites a project `.env` or `config.yaml` — these files hold
API keys, DB passwords, and (for `config.yaml`) the approval policy
itself, so a write to them should require user approval. The matching
`write_file`/`patch` deny on the file-tools side was paired with these
terminal-side rules so neither path is an open door.
The redirection and `tee` rules anchored the sensitive path with
`_COMMAND_TAIL` (`(?:\s*(?:&&|\|\||;).*)?$`), which only tolerates the
rest of the line being empty or a command separator. The problem: in
POSIX shell the redirection target is fixed regardless of what trails it.
`echo secret > .env extra` still truncates `.env` (the `extra` is just
another argument to `echo`), and `echo secret > .env # note` does too
(the `#` starts a comment). Because neither tail is a separator, the old
anchor failed to match and the command sailed through approval — a
prompt-injected step could overwrite a project `.env`/`config.yaml`
unprompted. The system-path redirection rule one line above never had
this restriction and already caught these forms.
The fix introduces `_WRITE_TARGET_BOUNDARY`, a lookahead that only
requires the path token to END at a shell word boundary (whitespace,
quote, separator, redirection operator, `#`, or EOL) rather than
demanding the rest of the line be empty. It is applied to the two
stream-write rules (redirection and `tee`) where the sensitive path is
always a write target. The `cp`/`mv`/`install` rule deliberately keeps
`_COMMAND_TAIL`: there the sensitive file is only a target when it is the
LAST argument (the destination), so requiring end-of-line is correct and
keeps `cp config.yaml backup.yaml` (config.yaml as the source) out of the
deny.
## What does this PR do?
Closes a bypass in the dangerous-command approval gate where a trailing
argument or `#` comment after a `>`/`>>`/`tee` write target let a command
overwrite a project `.env` or `config.yaml` without triggering approval,
even though the shell still overwrites the file.
## Related Issue
N/A
## Type of Change
- [x] 🔒 Security fix
## Changes Made
- `tools/approval.py`: add `_WRITE_TARGET_BOUNDARY` (a word-boundary
lookahead) and use it instead of `_COMMAND_TAIL` in the two
project-env/config stream-write patterns ("overwrite project env/config
via tee" and "via redirection"). `_COMMAND_TAIL` is kept and still used
by the `cp`/`mv`/`install` rule, where end-of-line anchoring is the
correct semantics.
- `tests/tools/test_approval.py`: add regression tests for
`> .env extra`, `> .env # note`, `>> config.yaml foo`, and
`tee .env backup` (now flagged), plus `> config.yaml.bak` (must stay
safe — different file).
## How to Test
1. Reproduce: before the fix,
`detect_dangerous_command("echo secret > .env extra")` returns
`(False, None, None)` — the overwrite is not flagged.
2. Apply the fix; the same call now returns the "overwrite project
env/config via redirection" detection.
3. Run `pytest tests/tools/test_approval.py -q` — the new cases pass and
the existing `cp config.yaml backup.yaml` / `config.yaml.bak`
false-positive guards still hold.
## Checklist
### Code
- [x] I've read the Contributing Guide
- [x] My commit messages follow Conventional Commits
- [x] I searched for existing PRs to make sure this isn't a duplicate
- [x] My PR contains only changes related to this fix
- [x] I've run the relevant tests and they pass
- [x] I've added tests for my changes
- [x] I've tested on my platform: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.5)
### Documentation & Housekeeping
- [x] I've updated relevant documentation (README, docs/, docstrings) — or N/A
- [x] I've updated cli-config.yaml.example if I added/changed config keys — or N/A
- [x] I've updated CONTRIBUTING.md or AGENTS.md if I changed architecture or workflows — or N/A
- [x] I've considered cross-platform impact (Windows, macOS) — or N/A
- [x] I've updated tool descriptions/schemas if I changed tool behavior — or N/A
## What does this PR do?
Closes a critical hole in the hardline command floor. HARDLINE_PATTERNS is
the unconditional last line of defense: detect_hardline_command runs BEFORE
every yolo / approvals.mode=off / cron approve-mode bypass, so it is the only
gate standing between the agent (or a prompt-injected instruction) and an
irrecoverable disk wipe. The three rm rules anchored on a bare path token,
and _normalize_command_for_detection never strips shell quotes — so the
ordinary, recommended shell idioms slipped straight through:
rm -rf "/" rm -rf '/' rm -rf "/etc"
rm -rf "$HOME" rm -rf ${HOME} rm -rf "${HOME}"
All of these returned NO hardline match. A leading quote pushes the path out
of reach of the flag group, a trailing quote breaks the `(\s|$)` terminator,
and the `${HOME}` brace form was never listed at all. Under --yolo,
approvals.mode=off, or cron approve-mode the dangerous-command layer is also
skipped, so these commands reached execution with zero gate — exactly the
unrecoverable data loss the floor is documented to make impossible. Because
quoting paths and `${HOME}` are normal shell usage, not exotic obfuscation,
this is a high-severity, easily-triggered bypass.
The fix makes the rm path matcher quote- and brace-tolerant while staying
conservative: a path is matched when it is either fully wrapped in its own
matching quote pair (`"/"`) or bare with a whitespace/end terminator. The
matching-quote requirement is deliberate so the change adds no new false
positives — a dangerous-looking string that is merely an argument to another
command (e.g. `git commit -m "rm -rf /"`) has a closing quote but no opening
quote of its own around the path, so neither branch fires.
## Related Issue
N/A
## Type of Change
- [x] 🔒 Security fix
## Changes Made
- `tools/approval.py`: added `_hardline_rm_path()` (matches a destructive
path either fully quoted or bare-with-terminator), factored the protected
system-dir list into `_HARDLINE_SYSTEM_DIRS` and the rm flag prefix into
`_RM_FLAG_PREFIX`, and rebuilt the three rm `HARDLINE_PATTERNS` on top of
them, adding the `${HOME}` brace form. Kept as plain concatenation so regex
backslashes never land inside an f-string field (Python 3.11 floor).
- `tests/tools/test_hardline_blocklist.py`: added quoted (`"/"`, `'/'`,
`"/etc"`, `"$HOME"`, ...) and brace (`${HOME}`, `"${HOME}"`) cases to the
must-block set, a dedicated `_QUOTED_BRACE_BYPASS` regression parametrization,
no-false-positive guards (`git commit -m "rm -rf /"`), and extended the
yolo-cannot-bypass integration test to cover the quoted/brace forms.
## How to Test
1. Reproduce the bypass on `main`: `detect_hardline_command('rm -rf "/"')`
returns `(False, None)` — the floor lets it through.
2. With this change it returns `(True, "recursive delete of root filesystem")`;
the same holds for `'/'`, `"/etc"`, `"$HOME"`, `${HOME}`, `"${HOME}"`.
3. Run the suite: `scripts/run_tests.sh tests/tools/test_hardline_blocklist.py`
— 125 passed, including the new bypass and no-false-positive cases.
## Checklist
### Code
- [x] I've read the Contributing Guide
- [x] My commit messages follow Conventional Commits (`fix(scope):`, etc.)
- [x] I searched for existing PRs to make sure this isn't a duplicate
- [x] My PR contains **only** changes related to this fix (no unrelated commits)
- [x] I've run the relevant tests and they pass
- [x] I've added tests for my changes (required for bug fixes)
- [x] I've tested on my platform: macOS 15 (Darwin 25.5)
### Documentation & Housekeeping
- [x] I've updated relevant documentation (README, `docs/`, docstrings) — or N/A
- [x] I've updated `cli-config.yaml.example` if I added/changed config keys — or N/A
- [x] I've updated `CONTRIBUTING.md` or `AGENTS.md` if I changed architecture or workflows — or N/A
- [x] I've considered cross-platform impact (Windows, macOS) — pattern-only change, ruff + footgun gate pass
- [x] I've updated tool descriptions/schemas if I changed tool behavior — or N/A
Follow-up to the salvaged #22070. The cron-deny tirith ImportError branch
was unconditionally fail-open; now it honours security.tirith_fail_open:
false by blocking (a cron session has no user to approve), mirroring the
main flow's fail-closed synthesis (#20733).
Adds regression tests: tirith-only content threat blocked in cron-deny,
plus fail-closed/fail-open ImportError behavior.
In check_all_command_guards, the cron-deny path only ran
detect_dangerous_command (regex patterns). The tirith check starts at
line 1017, after the early return at line 1002, so content-level threats
caught only by tirith (homograph URLs, pipe-to-interpreter, terminal
injection) were silently approved in cron sessions even with
approvals.cron_mode: deny.
Add a tirith call inside the cron-deny block, mirroring the same
ImportError guard used in the main flow.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
GNU tools accept unique long-option prefix abbreviations at runtime, so
`chown --recurs root` and `git push --forc` evaded the approval gate's
exact-match `--recursive`/`--force` patterns. Switch those two entries
to prefix matches (--recur[a-z]*, --forc[a-z]*).
The rm/chmod/sed long-flag patterns were left unchanged: every abbreviation
of those is already caught by the sibling short-flag and target patterns
(rm -[^s]*r, base chmod 777, sed -[^s]*i), so prefix-matching them is a
no-op. Only chown (beyond the coincidental case-insensitive r->R catch) and
git push had genuine gaps.
Co-authored-by: Subway2023 <subw3@mail2.sysu.edu.cn>
The dangerous-command approval prompt renders the flagged command so the
user can decide whether to approve. If the agent constructed it with a
credential (curl -H 'Authorization: Bearer sk-...', psql postgres://user:pw@host,
an execute_code script with api_key = 'sk-...'), that secret hit stdout and,
via the gateway notify payload, Discord/Slack messages — which are
screenshottable and forwardable.
Apply the existing agent.redact.redact_sensitive_text() to every user-facing
approval surface. Redaction is display-only: the raw command still executes
after approval, and approval persistence keys off pattern_key (not the command
text), so the allowlist is unaffected. Decision context (URL, flags, command
structure) is preserved; only the secret value masks.
Covers all surfaces, including the execute_code path the original PR missed:
- prompt_dangerous_approval(): callback + stdout fallback
- check_all_command_guards(): gateway approval_data + cron/batch pending fallback
- check_execute_code_guard(): gateway approval_data + no-notifier pending fallback
(script body can embed credentials)
Adds TestApprovalPromptRedaction covering callback redaction, no-over-redaction
of clean commands, and the execute_code pending fallback.
Salvaged from PR #13139 by @sgabel; extended to the execute_code surface.
Concurrent ACP sessions run on a shared ThreadPoolExecutor (max_workers=4).
Each _run_agent mutated the process-global os.environ["HERMES_INTERACTIVE"]
and restored it in finally, so one session's restore could clobber another's
set mid-run — dropping the second session onto the non-interactive
auto-approve path, executing a dangerous command without the approval
callback firing (GHSA-96vc-wcxf-jjff).
Replace the env-var flag with a thread/task-local contextvar in
tools.approval. The two HERMES_INTERACTIVE read sites in approval.py now go
through _is_interactive_cli() (contextvar-first, env fallback for legacy
single-threaded CLI callers). The ACP executor sets the contextvar instead
of os.environ; the existing contextvars.copy_context() wrapper isolates each
session's write.
Co-authored-by: Hermes Agent <127238744+teknium1@users.noreply.github.com>
Three independent security-scanner hardenings, re-homed onto the current
shared threat-pattern architecture (tools/threat_patterns.py):
- approval.py: add bash/sh/zsh/ksh heredoc to DANGEROUS_PATTERNS. The
existing heredoc pattern only covered python/perl/ruby/node, so
`bash <<'EOF' ... EOF` ran arbitrary shell — including exfil pipelines
whose inner commands don't individually match a pattern — with no prompt.
- threat_patterns.py: apply unicodedata.normalize("NFKC", ...) before
pattern matching so full-width / compatibility homographs (e.g.
`ｃａｔ ~/.hermes/.env`) are folded to ASCII and no longer bypass the
keyword scanners. Invisible-char detection still runs on the raw content
first (NFKC can strip those codepoints).
- code_execution_tool.py: add CREDS/BEARER/APIKEY to _SECRET_SUBSTRINGS so
vars like HERMES_LLM_CREDS, API_BEARER, MY_APIKEY are scrubbed from the
sandbox env. PASS was intentionally dropped from the original proposal —
it false-positives on BYPASS_CACHE / COMPASS_DIR / PASSENGER_HOST while
PASSWORD/PASSWD already cover the credential cases.
The original PR also proposed a 'synonym' injection pattern block
(overlook/forget/set aside/bypass/discard + developer-mode); dropped here
because it false-positives on ordinary AGENTS.md/SOUL.md prose ("don't
forget to follow the rules", "run in developer mode"), exactly the
bossy-English class threat_patterns.py is documented to avoid.
Salvaged from #9028.
Co-authored-by: Hermes Agent <agent@nousresearch.com>
The gateway-lifecycle guard's hermes-CLI pattern required `hermes`
and `gateway` to be adjacent, so a profile flag slipped the agent
past it: `hermes -p ade gateway restart` was not flagged. That is the
exact form from the 2026-04-11 ade-profile self-kill loop. Allow an
optional run of global flags (`-p ade`, `--profile ade`, multiple
flags) between `hermes` and the gateway subcommand.
launchctl self-termination is already covered on main by #33071; this
narrows the only remaining real gap.
_normalize_approval_mode() previously accepted any string, so an unknown
value like 'auto' fell through every downstream mode check (off/smart) and
silently behaved like manual with no signal. Validate against the known
modes (manual/smart/off), emit a warning for anything else, and default to
manual to match the config default and the rest of the function.
Bug 1 from the original PR (/approve & /deny bypassing the running-agent
guard) already landed on main independently, so only the mode-validation
fix is salvaged here.
Fixes#4261
Co-authored-by: Hermes Agent <agent@nousresearch.com>
* fix(terminal): require approval for host-bound Docker commands
The Docker terminal backend blanket-skips dangerous-command approval on
the assumption that the container is isolated from the host. That holds
only when nothing is bind-mounted in. Once a host path is exposed (via
TERMINAL_DOCKER_MOUNT_CWD_TO_WORKSPACE or a host-path entry in
TERMINAL_DOCKER_VOLUMES), a command like `rm -rf /workspace` reaches
real host files but is still auto-approved.
Detect host bind mounts and route those sessions through the normal
approval flow. Isolated Docker keeps the fast path. The same gating is
applied to the execute_code guard, which had the identical blanket skip.
Co-authored-by: Hermes Agent <agent@nousresearch.com>
* chore: add AUTHOR_MAP entry for PR #6436 salvage (Kolektori)
* test: accept has_host_access kwarg in _check_all_guards mocks
The host-bound Docker approval fix adds a has_host_access kwarg to the
_check_all_guards wrapper. Six pre-existing tests monkeypatch it with a
fixed (command, env_type) / (cmd, env) lambda signature, which now
raises TypeError when terminal_tool passes the new kwarg. Widen those
mock signatures to accept **kwargs.
---------
Co-authored-by: Kolektori <256073454+Kolektori@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Hermes Agent <agent@nousresearch.com>
check_all_command_guards() swallowed ImportError from tools.tirith_security
with an unconditional pass, leaving tirith_result["action"] as "allow"
regardless of security.tirith_fail_open. When an operator sets
tirith_fail_open: false they have explicitly opted into fail-closed
behaviour; a missing or broken Tirith module must not silently permit
command execution.
Inside the except ImportError handler, read the live security config.
When tirith_enabled is true and tirith_fail_open is false, synthesise a
"warn"-action Tirith result so the command flows through the normal
approval path (prompt the user, or block in cron/gateway contexts)
instead of bypassing it. The default tirith_fail_open: true behaviour
is unchanged.
Adds three regression tests to tests/tools/test_approval.py:
- fail_open=true + ImportError → silently allowed (no regression)
- fail_open=false + ImportError → approval callback invoked, command denied
- tirith_enabled=false → always allowed regardless of fail_open
Fixes#20733
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
# Conflicts:
# tests/tools/test_approval.py
The dangerous-command approval layer already blocks `hermes gateway
(stop|restart)`, `pkill/killall hermes|gateway`, and `kill ... $(pgrep ...)`.
A reporter noted on #33071 that the agent can still achieve the same
effect by driving launchd directly against the gateway's service label
(`launchctl stop ai.hermes.gateway`, `launchctl kickstart -k
system/ai.hermes.gateway`, etc.) or by substituting `pidof` for `pgrep`
in the kill-expansion form.
This widens the "Gateway lifecycle protection" block in
`tools/approval.py` to cover both vectors:
- `launchctl (stop|kickstart|bootout|unload|kill|disable|remove)`
scoped to commands that target a Hermes label (`hermes`,
`ai.hermes`). Read-only inspection (`launchctl print …`,
`launchctl list`) and operations against unrelated labels remain
unflagged.
- `kill ... $(pidof …)` and the backtick form, alongside the existing
`pgrep` expansion. `pidof` is the BSD/Linux equivalent and is
equally opaque to the `(pkill|killall) … hermes` name pattern.
Intentionally left out of scope: plain `kill -TERM <numeric_pid>` with
a PID looked up out-of-band. Catching that would require runtime PID
state and would break the existing
`TestPgrepKillExpansion::test_safe_kill_pid_not_flagged` contract,
which guarantees that a plain literal-PID `kill 12345` stays safe.
The detector folds absolute home / Hermes-home prefixes into their canonical
~/ and ~/.hermes/ forms so static patterns catch /home/alice/.bashrc the same
way they catch ~/.bashrc (abd69b81). On native Windows this fold never fired,
so terminal commands writing to shell startup files, ~/.ssh/authorized_keys,
or ~/.hermes/config.yaml / .env returned "safe" and skipped the approval
prompt — and config.yaml carries the approval policy itself.
Two compounding causes:
1. The fold ran after the backslash-escape strip (r\m -> rm), which dissolves
the backslash separators in a Windows path (C:\Users\alice\.bashrc ->
C:Usersalice...) before the fold could match. It now runs before the strip.
2. The fold only recognized POSIX absolute paths and only the home prefix,
leaving multi-segment backslash suffixes (\.ssh\authorized_keys) to be
mangled by the strip.
Consolidated into _home_prefix_fold_regex / _fold_home_prefixes: match a home
prefix with either separator, capture the rest of the path token, and
normalize its separators to / so multi-segment patterns match. The
degenerate-path guard generalizes count("/") >= 2 to "at least two components
below the root" (also rejecting a bare drive root C:\). HOME is consulted
directly because Windows' expanduser ignores it; the more specific Hermes home
is folded first, longest candidate first, so neither fold clobbers the other.
POSIX behavior unchanged; the r\m -> rm anti-obfuscation strip still runs.
Adds TestWindowsAbsolutePathFolding, which monkeypatches a Windows-style
HOME/HERMES_HOME so the behavior is also exercised on the CI runner.
A dangerous-command gateway approval blocks the agent's execution thread
inside _await_gateway_decision() on threading.Event.wait() until the user
responds or the 5-minute approval timeout fires. The poll loop never checked
is_interrupted(), so /stop (which flags the agent's execution thread via
AIAgent.interrupt()) was silently ignored — the session stayed wedged until
timeout, even though /stop reported the session unlocked.
Check is_interrupted() at the top of the poll loop. The wait runs on the
agent's execution thread, the exact thread interrupt() flags, so the check
sees the signal and resolves the pending approval as deny — the agent loop
receives a normal denial and unwinds cleanly. Covers /stop, /new, and the
gateway inactivity-timeout interrupt through the single shared wait loop used
by both the terminal and execute_code guards.
Wires support for the MCP `elicitation/create` request (Python SDK 1.11+)
so MCP servers can ask the user to confirm sensitive operations
mid-tool-call (payment authorization, OAuth confirmation, etc.) instead
of failing closed or requiring out-of-band biometrics.
Behavior:
- `tools/mcp_tool.py` adds `ElicitationHandler`, attached per server task
and passed to `ClientSession` as `elicitation_callback`. Form-mode
requests route through the existing approval system; URL-mode requests
decline cleanly (out of scope for this pass).
- `tools/approval.py` adds `request_elicitation_consent()`, which dispatches
to whichever surface owns the active session — `_await_gateway_decision`
for Telegram / Slack / etc. (so the approval prompt lands on the right
platform), `prompt_dangerous_approval` for CLI / TUI. Fails closed on
timeout, missing notify_cb, or exception.
- The MCP tool wrapper snapshots `contextvars.copy_context()` into
`MCPServerTask._pending_call_context` before each `session.call_tool`
and clears it after. The recv-loop task that dispatches incoming
`elicitation/create` requests does not inherit the agent task's
contextvars (HERMES_SESSION_PLATFORM and friends), so without the
bridge `_is_gateway_approval_context()` returns False on every
gateway session and the elicitation falls through to a CLI prompt
that has no TTY → fail-closed decline. The handler now reads the
snapshot via its `owner` back-reference and replays it through
`Context.copy().run(...)` so attribution survives the task hop.
Tests (`tests/tools/test_mcp_elicitation.py`):
- form-mode accept / decline / cancel
- URL-mode declined without prompting
- exception in approval system → decline
- timeout in approval → cancel
- context-bridge regression tests (replay observed in consent call,
missing-context fallback, multiple-replay safety, owner with
cleared `_pending_call_context`)
Verified end-to-end against pay's MCP server on macOS: agent message
arrives via Telegram, agent calls `mcp_pay_curl` against a paid endpoint,
pay returns 402, ElicitationHandler routes the approval prompt back to
the originating Telegram chat, user replies in TG, the curl tool signs
and completes.
Platforms tested: macOS 14 (darwin/arm64). No Unix-only syscalls
introduced; Windows footgun checker passes on the touched files.
tools/approval.py already denies tee/redirection writes to every
_SENSITIVE_WRITE_TARGET (~/.ssh/*, ~/.netrc/.pgpass/.npmrc/.pypirc, shell
rc files, ~/.hermes/config.yaml/.env) via the DANGEROUS_PATTERNS tee/`>`
rules, but cp/mv/install were only paired for _SYSTEM_CONFIG_PATH (/etc) and
the project-relative env/config target. So `cp evil ~/.ssh/authorized_keys`
(SSH-key implant / persistence), `cp creds ~/.netrc`, and `cp evil ~/.bashrc`
(login-time command injection) auto-approved while the equivalent tee/`>`
forms were denied — an unpaired write deny is theater (same rationale as
#14639 / commit 4e9d886d, which paired the terminal side for
~/.hermes/config.yaml writes but did not touch these cp/mv/install verbs on
the broader sensitive set).
Add one (cp|mv|install) DANGEROUS_PATTERNS entry reusing the existing
_SENSITIVE_WRITE_TARGET fragment, anchored via _COMMAND_TAIL so it fires on
the destination (last arg) only: reading OUT of a sensitive path
(`cp ~/.ssh/config /tmp/x`) stays auto-approved. Description differs from the
system-config cp entry so the two keep distinct approval keys (no silent
cross-approval). Additive — does not subsume the /etc or project-config rules.
Adds TestSensitiveCopyMovePattern: 5 positive cases (ssh authorized_keys,
ssh private key via mv, netrc via install, bashrc, ~/.hermes/config.yaml) +
2 negative guards (copy FROM ssh, unrelated copy). The ssh/netrc/bashrc
positives fail on main and pass on this branch; the negatives stay green
both ways.
Collapse the verbose multi-line rationale comments across the TUI/desktop/
backend approval surfaces into single-line "why" notes, and derive
APPROVAL_OPTS_NO_ALWAYS from APPROVAL_OPTS instead of re-listing it.
No behavior change.
When a tirith content-security warning is present the approval backend
forces allow_permanent=False and silently downgrades an "always" choice to
session scope (the persistence loop in check_all_command_guards only honors
"always" → permanent when no tirith finding exists). But the gateway notify
payload that drives the TUI and the Electron desktop app never carried that
flag, so both surfaces always rendered "Always allow" — offering a permanent
allow the backend would quietly refuse to persist.
Plumb allow_permanent end-to-end:
- tools/approval.py: include `allow_permanent: not has_tirith` in the gateway
approval_data the notify callback emits as `approval.request`.
- ui-tui: thread `allowPermanent` through the event handler, gateway types,
and ApprovalReq; ApprovalPrompt drops the "always" option (and renumbers the
quick-pick keys) when it's false.
- apps/desktop: thread `allow_permanent` through the gateway payload type, the
per-session approval store, and the inline ApprovalBar, which now hides the
"Always allow…" dropdown item when permanent allow is disallowed — reusing
the existing DropdownMenu / confirm-Dialog UI.
The desktop/TUI render path for approvals already landed in #38578 (the root
cause of approvals not surfacing in the GUI); this completes the salvage of
#37856 by carrying allow_permanent across both surfaces. #37856's original
thread-local _block() approach is dropped: desktop/TUI approvals resolve via
approval.respond → resolve_gateway_approval (the per-session queue), not the
_block()/request_id correlation, so a worker-thread callback waiting on _block
would never be released by the real UI.
Tests: gateway notify payload carries allow_permanent (True without tirith,
False with a tirith warning); ui-tui approvalAction reduced option set +
event-handler allowPermanent propagation; desktop store round-trip + the
ApprovalBar showing/hiding "Always allow".
Supersedes #37856Closes#37812
Co-authored-by: LeonSGP43 <cine.dreamer.one@gmail.com>
helix4u's fix snapshotted the resolved HERMES_HOME into the static
config/env patterns at module-import time. That breaks when HERMES_HOME
is set after tools.approval is imported (the hermetic test conftest, any
deferred-profile-resolution path), and made the PR's own 4 new tests red.
Move the resolution into _normalize_command_for_detection(): rewrite the
live resolved absolute home prefix (and its symlink-resolved form) to the
canonical ~/.hermes/ form before pattern matching. Tracks the live env,
needs no regex recompile, and folds the absolute form into the shared
_SENSITIVE_WRITE_TARGET so > redirects, tee, cp, etc. are covered too —
not just sed/perl/ruby in-place edits.
DANGEROUS_PATTERNS and HARDLINE_PATTERNS are matched on the raw command string,
so backslash-escape (r\m) and empty-quote split (r''m) bypass both lists.
_normalize_command_for_detection now strips these before pattern matching.
tui_gateway shell.exec had a bare 'except ImportError: pass' that silently
disabled the entire safety gate if tools.approval wasn't importable. Changed
to fail-closed (return 5001 error). Added detect_hardline_command check.
Fixes#36846, #36847.
check_execute_code_guard() never called is_approved() before entering the
approval flow, and never persisted session/permanent approvals from the
gateway response. This meant 'Approve session' and 'Always' buttons had
no effect — every execute_code call re-prompted the user.
- Add is_approved() check after get_current_session_key(), matching
check_all_command_guards()
- Persist session ('approve_session') and permanent ('approve_permanent')
approvals based on the gateway choice, same as terminal command guard
- Add 3 regression tests for session persistence, permanent persistence,
and short-circuit on pre-existing approval
The salvaged pattern matched -i only inside the first flag token, so
`perl -p -i -e '...' config.yaml` (the -i split out after -p) slipped
through. Widen to match a -...i flag token anywhere in the args; still
no false positive on `perl -e` code eval or config reads. Adds tests
for the separate-token, backup-suffix, and read-safe forms.
sed -i coverage for ~/.hermes/config.yaml and .env was added in #14639,
but perl -i and ruby -i — which perform the same direct file mutation —
were not covered. The existing perl/ruby pattern only catches -e/-c (code
evaluation), not -i (file mutation), so:
perl -i -pe 's/approvals.mode: on/approvals.mode: off/' ~/.hermes/config.yaml
bypasses the approval gate entirely, letting the agent flip approvals.mode
off mid-session via the mtime-keyed config cache reload.
Add a single pattern mirroring the sed -i lines: `\b(?:perl|ruby)\s+-[^\s]*i`
against both _HERMES_CONFIG_PATH and _HERMES_ENV_PATH. Three regression
tests pin the new coverage.
