Security audit findings: beads (bd) CLI - 11-category audit of a vibe-coded Go codebase. No malicious code detected; 4 medium + 6 low conventional findings.

BEADS_SECURITY_AUDIT.md

Security Audit Report: beads (bd) CLI

Date: 2026-08-11
Repository: https://github.com/gastownhall/beads
Version: v1.1.2 + 2 weeks of unrelease commits
Commit SHA: 18c24a3ac3e737c34cb478d58ecf3a805a99e996
Scope: Full security audit of a Go CLI tool for issue tracking with Dolt/SQLite backends, git sync, and AI agent integration.
Methodology: glm-5.2-max investigation covering 300+ Go source files, dependency manifests, CI pipelines, and install scripts, searching for unintentional and malicous security issues.

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Verdict: No Malicious Code Detected

The 7 malicious-intent categories (backdoors, data exfiltration, obfuscation, supply chain attacks, credential harvesting, trojan functionality, anti-analysis) all returned clean. No backdoors, hidden endpoints, encoded payloads, data exfiltration, credential harvesting, persistence mechanisms, or environment-aware behavior changes were found.

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Conventional Vulnerability Findings

Medium Severity (4 findings)

#	Category	File:Line	Issue	Recommendation
M1	SQL Injection	cmd/bd/doctor/fix/metadata.go:286	dbName from SHOW DATABASES interpolated without backtick escaping. Same file at line 449 has the correct pattern.	Apply strings.ReplaceAll(dbName, "", "``")` like line 449
M2	SQL Injection	internal/doltserver/doltserver.go:1595,1605	dbName from SHOW DATABASES interpolated in SELECT and USE without escaping. //nolint:gosec comment incorrectly claims it is constant.	Escape backticks or validate with isValidIdentifier
M3	SQL Injection	cmd/bd/doctor/dolt.go:679	Same unescaped dbName pattern in doctor probes.	Same fix as M1
M4	Secrets	cmd/bd/federation.go:137	--password/-p flag accepts password as CLI arg, visible in process list. The serve command deliberately avoids this pattern.	Consider deprecating --password in favor of interactive prompt only, or env var

Low Severity (6 findings)

#	Category	File:Line	Issue
L1	Secrets	internal/configfile/credentials.go:42	Plaintext credentials file (standard pattern like ~/.pgpass, with permission warning)
L2	Secrets	internal/storage/dolt/credentials.go:62	AES encryption key stored alongside encrypted data in .beads/ (standard for local CLI tools, 0600 perms, gitignored)
L3	Secrets	internal/ado/types.go:101	SecretString type only used for ADO PAT, not other integration tokens (mitigated by masking/redaction)
L4	TLS	internal/configfile/external_dolt_config.go:112	InsecureSkipVerify available via opt-in TLSSkipVerify config flag (gated, gosec-suppressed, testing only)
L5	SQL Injection	internal/storage/dolt/federation.go:285	AS OF ref interpolation after strict regex validation (^[a-zA-Z0-9_./-]+$) -- Dolt syntax does not support bind params here
L6	Path Traversal	internal/beads/beads.go:134	FollowRedirect uses filepath.Join without .. sanitization (mitigated by isPathInSafeBoundary downstream)

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Clean Categories (all 11)

Backdoor Detection -- CLEAN

• 5 hidden cobra commands: all legitimate internal infrastructure (db-proxy-child, codex-hook, cursor-hook, send-metrics, migrate-issues alias)
• 15 hidden flags: all CLI ergonomics aliases or backwards-compat shims
• No magic strings, date triggers, username-based triggers, or auth bypasses
• All HTTP API routes defined in single route table (routes.go:170-733), spec-parity enforced by tests
• No conditionally-registered or undocumented endpoints

Data Exfiltration -- CLEAN

• Complete URL inventory: only expected destinations (GitHub, Linear, Jira, GitLab, Notion, ADO, Anthropic, PyPI, beads' own telemetry endpoint)
• Telemetry sends only command names + HMAC'd machine ID -- never issue content
• No DNS-based exfiltration (net.LookupHost/TXT/MX not used)
• Telemetry endpoint hardened against project-level redirect attacks (flusher child drops inherited env vars)
• All integration sync is user-initiated and expected

Obfuscation -- CLEAN

• No hardcoded base64/hex strings decoding to URLs, commands, or code
• All base64 usage: standard auth headers and cursor pagination
• All hex usage: hash output encoding, test fixtures, CI SHA pins
• reflect usage: 100% in test files (*_test.go), no production dynamic dispatch
• unsafe usage: 5 instances, all syscall argument passing (ioctl/fcntl) with gosec annotations
• No plugin.Open, no go:linkname, no import "C", no string obfuscation

Supply Chain -- CLEAN

• No typosquatting, no homograph attacks, no suspicious dependencies
• Zero replace or retract directives in go.mod
• No vendored code, no local path replacements
• go.sum: all checksums present and consistent
• CI: all GitHub Actions pinned with SHA hashes
• Install scripts verify SHA256 checksums before installing
• Release pipeline includes SBOM generation and release attestation

Credential Harvesting -- CLEAN

• Every integration token flows only to its expected API endpoint via Authorization headers
• No tokens in URL query strings, request bodies to unexpected hosts, or error messages
• Telemetry args thoroughly scrubbed (passwords, DSN credentials, secret flags)
• Secret keys stored in config.yaml (not Dolt DB), excluded from dolt push
• CheckSecretKeyGitSafety() refuses to write secrets to git-tracked config
• HTTP API settings endpoint redacts secret values via config.IsSecretKey()
• No InsecureSkipVerify in production paths (only opt-in testing config)

Trojan Functionality -- CLEAN

• No system file modification (no writes to /etc, /usr, /var, shell configs, SSH keys)
• No persistence mechanisms (no LaunchAgents, cron jobs, services, self-copying)
• No sensitive file reads (~/.ssh/id_rsa, ~/.aws/credentials, ~/.kube/config -- zero matches)
• All process kills target beads' own spawned processes with PID revalidation
• No network infrastructure modification (no /etc/hosts, firewall, DNS, or proxy changes)
• All data collection (hostname, machine ID, git user.name) serves legitimate functions

Anti-Analysis -- CLEAN

• No debugger detection (no ptrace, TracerPid, parent process checks)
• CI detection (CI=true) only used for non-interactive mode -- standard CLI pattern
• No analysis tool detection (no strace/gdb/lldb/valgrind/wireshark checks)
• No timing-based anti-analysis (all time.Sleep calls are legitimate retries/polling)
• machineid uses HMAC-protected app-scoped ID, not raw hardware ID; opt-out available
• All /proc reads are for lock diagnostics and orphan cleanup, not tool detection

Command Injection -- CLEAN

• Every exec.Command call uses separate args, never shell string interpolation
• Only one sh -c in production code: credential-process helper (by-design, env-var-sourced)
• Git operations consistently disable hooks (core.hooksPath=) and templates (GIT_TEMPLATE_DIR=)
• BEADS_DIR validated against isPathInSafeBoundary() with symlink resolution

Path Traversal -- CLEAN

• isPathInSafeBoundary (SEC-003) rejects system directories and other users' homes
• safeWorkspacePath uses filepath.Rel to verify containment
• Atomic file writes via os.CreateTemp (random names, no predictability)
• Workspace gate rejects symlinked directories and uses O_EXCL for TOCTOU prevention
• CLI-context file opens (user-supplied @file paths) are acceptable -- user already has FS access

SQL Injection -- CLEAN

• User data values consistently passed as ? bind parameters across all filter/search/query code
• Dynamic table/column names sourced from hardcoded constants or validated with strict regex
• sqlStringLiteral properly escapes ' and \
• ValidateRef and ValidateConflictTable strictly validate before interpolation

Secrets Handling -- CLEAN

• No hardcoded secrets found
• Comprehensive token masking before display and telemetry scrubbing
• AES-256-GCM encryption for federation peer passwords
• HTTP API never echoes presented credentials
• ADO SecretString type prevents accidental serialization of PATs

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Security Strengths

1. Parameterized queries consistently used for all user data values across SQL layer
2. Constant-time auth comparison (subtle.ConstantTimeCompare) for HTTP API tokens
3. SHA-256 digests (not plaintext) for auth token storage in memory
4. Structural secret isolation: secrets in YAML config, not Dolt DB; excluded from sync
5. Telemetry endpoint pinning: flusher child drops inherited env to prevent hijack
6. Spec-parity tests for all HTTP API routes
7. Comprehensive telemetry scrubbing with dedicated test coverage
8. AES-256-GCM encryption for federation credentials with random keys
9. SHA-pinned CI actions and checksum-verified install scripts
10. Git hooks disabled in all internal git operations

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Recommended Fixes (Priority Order)

1. M1 -- cmd/bd/doctor/fix/metadata.go:286: Escape backticks in dbName (same file already has the correct pattern at line 449)
2. M2 -- internal/doltserver/doltserver.go:1595,1605: Escape backticks in dbName from SHOW DATABASES
3. M3 -- cmd/bd/doctor/dolt.go:679: Same backtick escaping fix
4. M4 -- cmd/bd/federation.go:137: Consider deprecating --password flag in favor of interactive prompt only

All four are medium/low severity with limited practical attack surface (the SQL injection findings require a malicious Dolt database name from a synced remote, and the password flag requires local process list access). No critical or high-severity findings.