# Review by Staff Security Engineer (Round 1)

Now I have a complete picture. Let me write my review as the Staff Security Engineer.

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## Security Review: Intent Router Agent Implementation

As the **Staff Security Engineer**, I've conducted a holistic security assessment of the Intent Router Agent implementation.

### Key Observations

**Branch State Issue**: The feature branch `colonyos/right_now_the_pipeline_always_runs_this_huge_planner_implementation_orchestratio` points to the same commit as `main` (both at `54395fc`). The implementation was already merged to main. There is **no diff** between the branches, which means this review is assessing the merged implementation rather than a pending PR.

### Security Strengths (Implemented)

1. **Two-Stage Design with Least Privilege** ✅
   - Router (Phase 1): Uses `allowed_tools=[]` - zero tool access for classification
   - Q&A Agent (Phase 2): Uses `["Read", "Glob", "Grep"]` - read-only tools only
   - This is the correct architecture: classify with no capabilities, then grant minimal capabilities

2. **Input Sanitization** ✅
   - All user inputs are passed through `sanitize_untrusted_content()` from `colonyos/sanitize.py`
   - XML tag stripping prevents prompt delimiter injection attacks
   - The sanitizer is well-tested and handles known attack vectors

3. **Budget Caps** ✅
   - Router: $0.05 budget (tiny, limits blast radius)
   - Q&A: $0.50 default budget (configurable)
   - Cost containment prevents runaway LLM calls

4. **Fail-Open to Full Pipeline** ✅
   - Unknown categories default to `CODE_CHANGE` (full pipeline)
   - Parse failures default to `CODE_CHANGE`
   - LLM errors default to `CODE_CHANGE`
   - This prevents bypassing security controls by tricking the classifier

5. **Frozen Dataclasses** ✅
   - `RouterResult` is `@dataclass(frozen=True)` - immutable after creation
   - Prevents post-classification tampering

### Security Gaps (Incomplete Implementation)

1. **Missing Audit Logging (FR-8)** ❌
   - PRD specifies: "Log to `.colonyos/runs/triage_<timestamp>.json`"
   - The `_log_router_decision()` function mentioned in tasks is **not implemented**
   - No persistent audit trail of routing decisions
   - **Security Impact**: Cannot audit what queries were routed where, making incident investigation difficult

2. **Missing CLI Integration (FR-4, FR-6)** ❌
   - `--no-triage` flag not implemented in `cli.py`
   - `route_query()` and `answer_question()` are not called from `cli.py run()` or REPL
   - The router module exists but is **dead code** - never invoked from entry points
   - **Security Impact**: The entire feature doesn't actually run, so security controls are moot

3. **Slack Integration (FR-4)** ❌
   - Slack handler still uses the old `triage_message()` directly
   - Not integrated with the unified router
   - **Security Impact**: Inconsistent security posture across entry points

### What Stops a Bad Instruction Template from Exfiltrating Secrets?

Reviewing the Q&A agent (`answer_question()` and `qa.md`):

**Protections in place:**
- Read-only tools: No `Bash`, `Write`, `Edit`, or `WebFetch`
- Cannot execute arbitrary code or write to files
- Cannot make network requests (no `WebFetch`)

**Potential gaps:**
- The Q&A agent CAN read any file in the repo, including:
  - `.env` files
  - `credentials.json`
  - Private keys
  - `.colonyos/config.yaml` (may contain Slack tokens)
- If a malicious user asks "What's in the .env file?", the agent will read and return it
- No file allowlist/denylist for sensitive paths

**Recommendation**: Add a secret-path filter to the Q&A agent that refuses to read `.env`, `**/credentials*`, `**/*.pem`, etc.

### Principle of Least Privilege Assessment

| Phase | Tools | Appropriate? |
|-------|-------|--------------|
| Router | None | ✅ Correct - classification needs no tools |
| Q&A | Read, Glob, Grep | ⚠️ Mostly correct, but can read secret files |
| Full Pipeline | All | N/A - outside scope |

### Test Coverage

- 60 router tests pass ✅
- Tests cover all security-relevant parsing edge cases
- Tests verify haiku model, zero tools, $0.05 budget
- Tests verify read-only tools for Q&A agent

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VERDICT: request-changes

FINDINGS:
- [src/colonyos/router.py]: Missing `_log_router_decision()` audit logging function (FR-8 not implemented)
- [src/colonyos/cli.py]: Router not integrated - `route_query()` never called from `run()` command or REPL (FR-4, FR-6 incomplete)
- [src/colonyos/cli.py]: Missing `--no-triage` flag (FR-6 not implemented)
- [src/colonyos/slack.py]: Slack handler not updated to use unified router (FR-4 incomplete)
- [src/colonyos/router.py]: Q&A agent can read sensitive files (`.env`, credentials) without restriction - potential secret exfiltration vector
- [branch state]: Feature branch points to same commit as main - appears implementation was merged but incomplete

SYNTHESIS:
From a security perspective, the Intent Router has **excellent architecture** - the two-stage design with privilege escalation from zero-tools (router) to read-only (Q&A) is exactly correct. Input sanitization is thorough, budget caps limit blast radius, and fail-open defaults protect against classifier bypass attacks. However, the implementation is **incomplete from a security operations standpoint**: there is no audit logging (critical for incident response), the router is never actually invoked from CLI entry points (making it dead code), and the Q&A agent lacks file-path filtering that would prevent reading secrets from `.env` files. The branch state suggests premature merge - core security features (audit trail) and integration work were not completed. I cannot approve until audit logging is implemented and the router is actually wired into the CLI/REPL paths.