# Review by Staff Security Engineer (Round 2)

I now have sufficient context to produce a thorough security review. Let me trace the key data flows and summarize my findings.

---

## Security Review — Staff Security Engineer

### Analysis Summary

I reviewed the full data flow for the Slack integration and thread-fix pipeline from a supply chain security, secrets management, least privilege, and auditability perspective. Here are my findings.

---

VERDICT: request-changes

FINDINGS:
- [src/colonyos/orchestrator.py:1641-1656]: **Prompt injection via template interpolation** — `fix_request` (untrusted Slack user input) is interpolated into both the system prompt (`template.format(fix_request=fix_request, ...)`) and the user prompt (`f"The fix request is: {fix_request}"`) WITHOUT being wrapped in `<slack_message>` delimiters or role-anchoring preamble. While `format_slack_as_prompt()` properly sanitizes and delimits the initial pipeline prompt, the thread-fix path passes `item_to_run.source_value` (which IS formatted) into `run_thread_fix()` as `fix_prompt`, but that formatted value includes `<slack_message>` tags that then get inserted into the thread_fix.md template's `{fix_request}` placeholder. An attacker could craft a Slack message that, despite XML tag stripping, manipulates the system prompt context since the fix_request is directly interpolated into the system prompt template — not quarantined in a separate user-message boundary.

- [src/colonyos/agent.py:52]: **All phases run with `bypassPermissions`** — There is no differentiation of privilege between phases. The Verify phase (which should be read-only — run tests, report results) gets the same `bypassPermissions` mode as Implement. A compromised or injected Verify prompt could write files, run arbitrary bash commands, or exfiltrate data. The Verify instruction template says "Do NOT modify any code" but this is an advisory constraint, not an enforced one.

- [src/colonyos/orchestrator.py:1644-1645]: **`original_prompt` injected into system prompt without re-sanitization at point of use** — In `_build_thread_fix_prompt`, `original_prompt` is interpolated into the system prompt template. While `_execute_fix_item` in cli.py (line 2638) does re-sanitize via `sanitize_untrusted_content()`, the `_build_thread_fix_prompt` function itself has no defensive check — any caller that passes unsanitized `original_prompt` would introduce injection risk. Defense-in-depth should sanitize at the point of use (in `_build_thread_fix_prompt`), not only at the caller.

- [src/colonyos/slack.py:958-973]: **Slack tokens stashed on app instance as plain attributes** — `app._colonyos_app_token` stores the app-level token as a plain attribute on the Bolt App instance. While this is needed for Socket Mode startup, any agent phase that introspects the Python process or has access to the app object could read this token. This is a minor concern since the agent already runs with full permissions, but it increases the blast radius if agent output is ever leaked.

- [src/colonyos/config.py:217-223]: **`auto_approve` warning is log-only, no enforcement** — When `slack.auto_approve=true` is set, a warning is logged, but there is no further gate. Combined with an empty `allowed_user_ids` list (the default), ANY user in the configured channels can trigger autonomous code execution with full permissions on the host machine. The `.colonyos/config.yaml` in this diff sets `auto_approve: false` but the code path does not enforce that `allowed_user_ids` must be non-empty when auto_approve is disabled — meaning any Slack user can trigger the triage + queue flow.

- [src/colonyos/cli.py:2023]: **Fix prompt re-formatted through `format_slack_as_prompt` but thread-fix template doesn't expect wrapping** — The fix queue item's `source_value` is set to `format_slack_as_prompt(fix_prompt_text, channel, user)`, which wraps content in `<slack_message>` tags. This wrapped value is then passed as `fix_prompt` to `run_thread_fix()`, which passes it to `_build_thread_fix_prompt()` as `fix_request` and directly into the template's `{fix_request}` slot. The template already has its own context framing ("The user has requested the following changes..."). This means `<slack_message>` delimiters plus the role-anchoring preamble from `format_slack_as_prompt` end up inside the system prompt — the nesting could confuse the model about trust boundaries.

- [No audit log]: **No structured audit trail for Slack-triggered executions** — There is no `logger.info("AUDIT: ...")` or structured event logging for security-relevant events: who triggered what, from which channel, what branch was modified, what the sanitized prompt was. The `RunLog` captures phase results and costs, but there's no centralized audit log that a security team could review to answer "what did the agent do on behalf of user X from Slack?"

- [slack-app-manifest.yaml:14-20]: **OAuth scopes include `channels:history`** — This scope allows the bot to read ALL messages in channels it's joined, not just mentions. While needed for the current `message.channels` event subscription, this is broader than necessary for a mention-only trigger mode. If `trigger_mode: mention` is the default, the `message.channels` event and `channels:history` scope grant more access than the principle of least privilege suggests.

SYNTHESIS:
The Slack integration shows solid defensive thinking in several areas: XML tag stripping, Slack link sanitization, git ref validation, channel allowlists, rate limiting, circuit breakers, and HEAD SHA verification against force-push tampering. The triage agent correctly runs with `allowed_tools=[]` and minimal budget. However, the critical gap is that the thread-fix pipeline interpolates untrusted Slack content directly into system prompts without the same role-anchoring quarantine applied to initial pipeline runs. The universal `bypassPermissions` mode across all phases — including Verify, which should be read-only — means a successful prompt injection in any phase has full code execution capabilities. I recommend: (1) sanitize and delimit `fix_request` within `_build_thread_fix_prompt` itself, not just at the caller; (2) restrict the Verify phase to read-only tools (`["Read", "Bash", "Glob", "Grep"]`); (3) add structured audit logging for all Slack-triggered executions; and (4) require `allowed_user_ids` to be non-empty when Slack is enabled, or at minimum make it a loud warning when it's empty and `auto_approve` is also true.