fix(mcp): validate the claim envelope before brain_edit writes too #136

Merged
mathias merged 8 commits from fix/123-brain-edit-envelope-check into main 2026-09-23 10:28:08 +00:00
2 changed files with 412 additions and 0 deletions
+175
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@@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ import (
"github.com/mathiasbq/hyperguild/ingestion/internal/brain"
"github.com/mathiasbq/hyperguild/ingestion/internal/capture"
"github.com/mathiasbq/hyperguild/ingestion/internal/claim"
"github.com/mathiasbq/hyperguild/ingestion/internal/classification"
"github.com/mathiasbq/hyperguild/ingestion/internal/notes"
)
@@ -179,6 +180,20 @@ func (s *Server) editWithScope(args json.RawMessage, scope notes.Scope) (notes.R
if err := json.Unmarshal(args, &a); err != nil {
return notes.Result{}, nil, fmt.Errorf("parse args: %w", err)
}
// hyperguild#123: brain_write/brain_update both validate the claim
// envelope before writing (hyperguild#111: "same rules when a note
// changes as when it's born"); brain_edit didn't — a byte-level string
// replace has no frontmatter awareness at all, so it could rewrite an
// existing half_life:/applies:/claim_provenance: line straight past the
// validator entirely. Scoped to notes only (governance files have no
// claim-envelope concept).
if scope == notes.ScopeNotes {
if verr := checkClaimEnvelope(s.brainDir, a.Path, a.OldStr, a.NewStr); verr != nil {
return notes.Result{}, nil, fmt.Errorf("claim envelope: %w", verr)
}
}
res, err := notes.Edit(s.brainDir, a.Path, a.OldStr, a.NewStr, scope)
if err != nil {
if errors.Is(err, notes.ErrDegenerate) && a.OldStr == "" {
@@ -228,3 +243,163 @@ func touchesFrontmatter(oldStr, newStr string) bool {
}
return false
}
// checkClaimEnvelope previews what old_str->new_str would produce — the
// exact strings.Replace(before, oldStr, newStr, 1) formula notes.Edit
// itself uses internally — and validates the resulting frontmatter's claim
// envelope before the real edit is allowed to run. Fail-closed: an invalid
// result blocks the edit entirely, the same posture writeHallNote/UpdateNote
// already apply on create/supersede.
//
// Gated on old_str appearing within the note's frontmatter BLOCK, not on
// old_str/new_str mentioning a claim-envelope field NAME — found in review:
// a field-name-substring gate misses a value-only edit like
// "asserted"->"guessed" on a claim_provenance line, which never mentions
// the field name at all. That is exactly the shape of edit a minimal,
// natural diff produces, so a field-name gate was closing the issue in
// name only. Checking block containment instead means any edit that
// couldn't possibly touch the frontmatter (its target text only exists in
// the body) is still skipped cheaply, while nothing inside the fence can
// slip through unvalidated regardless of which token it targets.
//
// This does not replicate notes.Edit's uniqueness/CRLF/conflict-marker
// checks — if old_str is absent or ambiguous, this preview may not match
// what Edit ultimately does, but Edit independently and correctly rejects
// those cases at write time regardless of what this function decides, so
// the only thing riding on this preview's accuracy is the envelope check
// itself, not write safety.
// checkClaimEnvelope previews what old_str->new_str would produce and
// validates the resulting claim envelope before the real edit runs
// (hyperguild#123). Seven review rounds closed every plausible bypass in the
// fence-detection family (field-name substring, block-containment,
// fence-stripping, CRLF, UTF-8 BOM) and the first instance of a
// value-extraction gap (a folded YAML block scalar hiding a value behind an
// empty inline colon).
//
// Known, accepted v1 gap: frontmatterScalars's block-scalar fold is a
// best-effort approximation, not a YAML parser — a blank line interrupting a
// folded continuation, or other contrived multi-line YAML shapes not yet
// probed (block-scalar indicators `|`/`>`, inline comments on a key line,
// quoted multi-line values), can still hide an invalid value from
// ValidateEnvelope. Accepted deliberately rather than chased indefinitely:
// every bypass found so far requires the caller to already hold brain_edit
// write access and to deliberately construct a specific malformed-YAML shape
// with knowledge of this exact gap — a narrow, low-likelihood threat next to
// the diminishing returns of another incremental patch round. The real fix
// (a shared, tested, encoding-normalized frontmatter parser used by all
// three independent implementations in this codebase) is tracked separately
// as hyperguild#138, not bolted on here piece by piece.
func checkClaimEnvelope(brainDir, path, oldStr, newStr string) error {
if oldStr == "" {
// hyperguild#115: strings.Replace treats "" as matching position 0,
// which would make an empty old_str look like an edit that inserts
// text before the fence — a degenerate-input case that belongs to
// notes.Edit's own "old_str is empty" refusal, not to the envelope
// check.
return nil
}
before, err := notes.Read(brainDir, path)
if err != nil {
// Let notes.Edit itself produce the real error (missing file, etc.)
// — this function's job is the envelope, not read failures.
return nil
}
// No gate on where old_str falls relative to the frontmatter fence:
// round 2 found that requiring old_str to be fully contained in the
// extracted block was itself bypassable by an old_str disambiguated
// across the closing "---" into the body. Simpler and bypass-proof:
// always compute what the edit would produce and validate that
// resulting state's envelope. A body-only edit leaves the frontmatter
// (and thus the validation outcome) unchanged, so this is a no-op for
// the common case and fail-closed for every case that touches the
// envelope, regardless of how old_str is phrased.
_, hadFence := frontmatterBlock(string(before))
after := strings.Replace(string(before), oldStr, newStr, 1)
_, hasFence := frontmatterBlock(after)
if hadFence && !hasFence {
// Round 3: an edit that drops the closing fence degrades `after`
// to "unfenced" — frontmatterScalars then sees an empty map and
// ValidateEnvelope({}) is nil by design (absent fields are valid),
// so an invalid value would otherwise land with zero error while
// also corrupting the note's structure. A previously-fenced note
// must stay fenced, full stop.
return fmt.Errorf("edit would remove the frontmatter fence")
}
return claim.ValidateEnvelope(frontmatterScalars(after))
}
// frontmatterBlock returns the raw text between doc's opening and closing
// `---` fences, or ok=false if doc has no (properly closed) fence.
func frontmatterBlock(doc string) (block string, ok bool) {
// Round 4 found a note with CRLF fence lines ("---\r\n") silently
// defeats HasPrefix(doc, "---\n") on the precondition read — not an
// adversarial old_str/new_str, just an encoding difference — which
// makes checkClaimEnvelope no-op entirely. Round 5 found the same
// mechanism one layer earlier: a leading UTF-8 BOM (a live, plausible
// byte sequence — Notepad's default "UTF-8" save and PowerShell's
// pre-v6 Out-File/Set-Content both emit one) defeats the same prefix
// check before CRLF normalization even applies. Strip both, here, so
// every caller (hadFence/hasFence detection and frontmatterScalars)
// agrees regardless of encoding.
doc = strings.TrimPrefix(doc, "\xef\xbb\xbf")
doc = strings.ReplaceAll(doc, "\r\n", "\n")
if !strings.HasPrefix(doc, "---\n") {
return "", false
}
rest := doc[len("---\n"):]
end := strings.Index(rest, "\n---\n")
if end < 0 {
return "", false
}
return rest[:end], true
}
// frontmatterScalars extracts top-level "key: value" scalar pairs from
// doc's leading fence block, for the claim-envelope check only — not a
// general frontmatter parser. Indented lines (YAML block-list items,
// wrapped values) are skipped rather than misparsed as keys, same fix as
// hyperguild#126/#128 in the sibling packages this mirrors.
func frontmatterScalars(doc string) map[string]string {
out := map[string]string{}
block, ok := frontmatterBlock(doc)
if !ok {
return out
}
lines := strings.Split(block, "\n")
for i := 0; i < len(lines); i++ {
line := lines[i]
if line != "" && (line[0] == ' ' || line[0] == '\t') {
continue
}
key, val, ok := strings.Cut(line, ":")
if !ok {
continue
}
val = strings.TrimSpace(val)
if val == "" {
// Round 6: a colon with nothing after it is ambiguous — it can
// be a genuinely empty/omitted value, or the start of a YAML
// block scalar whose real value lives on the indented
// continuation line(s) that follow (e.g. "half_life:\n
// durable"). Treating the latter as absent let an edit smuggle
// an invalid value straight past ValidateEnvelope: the field
// read as unset while the disk actually carried a value. Fold
// the continuation in as a best-effort join so oneOf() still
// sees it. A genuinely empty value (no indented line follows)
// still folds to "", preserving present()'s existing
// placeholder-not-assertion contract.
var cont []string
for i+1 < len(lines) {
next := lines[i+1]
if next == "" || (next[0] != ' ' && next[0] != '\t') {
break
}
cont = append(cont, strings.TrimSpace(next))
i++
}
val = strings.Join(cont, " ")
}
out[strings.TrimSpace(key)] = val
}
return out
}
+237
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@@ -93,6 +93,243 @@ func TestBrainEdit_EmptyOldStrErrorNamesRawArgumentBytes(t *testing.T) {
assert.Contains(t, errMsg, "raw arguments were", "%v", errMsg)
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAnInvalidClaimEnvelopeWrittenViaStringReplace(t *testing.T) {
// hyperguild#123: brain_write/brain_update both validate the claim
// envelope (half_life/applies/claim_provenance) before writing —
// brain_edit didn't, even though it's the one live, model-facing path
// that can rewrite an existing envelope line directly via raw string
// replace, no parsing involved. "same rules when a note changes as when
// it's born" (hyperguild#111's own framing) applies here too.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md", "old_str": "claim_provenance: asserted", "new_str": "claim_provenance: guessed",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "claim_provenance: asserted", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical")
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAValueOnlyEditThatBreaksTheEnvelope(t *testing.T) {
// Found in review: the original gate (touchesClaimEnvelope) checked
// whether old_str/new_str mention the FIELD NAME — but a minimal diff
// (the natural shape of any real edit, model-generated or human) can
// target just the VALUE token and never mention the field name at all.
// "asserted" -> "guessed" on a claim_provenance line walked straight
// past the field-name substring check and wrote an invalid enum value
// with no error — the exact bypass #123 was supposed to close, closed
// in name only.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md", "old_str": "asserted", "new_str": "guessed",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "claim_provenance: asserted", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical")
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAnOldStrThatCrossesTheClosingFence(t *testing.T) {
// Found in round-2 review: the position-based gate required old_str to
// be fully CONTAINED in the extracted frontmatter block (which excludes
// both "---" fence lines). An old_str disambiguated by extending past
// the closing fence into the body — a natural choice, since notes.Edit
// requires old_str to be unique in the file — fails that containment
// test, so checkClaimEnvelope skips validation entirely while
// notes.Edit still applies the replace verbatim. Same invalid-enum
// outcome as the original two bypasses, reached a third way.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md",
"old_str": "asserted\n---\n\nbody",
"new_str": "guessed\n---\n\nbody",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "claim_provenance: asserted", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical")
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAnEditThatRemovesTheClosingFence(t *testing.T) {
// Found in round-3 review: checkClaimEnvelope always validates the
// resulting frontmatter of `after` — but an edit whose new_str drops
// the closing "---" degrades `after` to "unfenced" in the same call.
// frontmatterBlock(after) then returns ok=false, frontmatterScalars
// returns an empty map, and claim.ValidateEnvelope({}) is nil by
// design (absent fields are valid) — so an invalid enum value lands on
// disk with zero error, and the note is left permanently unfenced.
// Structural fix: a note that had a valid fence before the edit must
// still have one after, or the edit is rejected outright.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md",
"old_str": "claim_provenance: asserted\n---\n",
"new_str": "claim_provenance: not-a-real-value\n",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "claim_provenance: asserted\n---\n", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical, fence intact")
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAnInvalidEnvelopeOnACRLFFencedNote(t *testing.T) {
// Found in round-4 review: frontmatterBlock's fence detection matches
// the literal byte sequence "---\n" / "\n---\n". A note whose fence
// lines use CRLF ("---\r\n") fails strings.HasPrefix(doc, "---\n") on
// the BEFORE read, so hadFence is false — not because the fence is
// missing, but because \r sits in front of every \n. hadFence&&!hasFence
// can then never fire, frontmatterScalars falls back to an empty map,
// and claim.ValidateEnvelope({}) is nil by design. No adversarial
// old_str/new_str crafting needed: encoding alone silently disables the
// whole envelope check for this note. Zero CRLF-fenced notes exist in
// the live corpus today, but nothing in the code prevents one.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\r\ntitle: 'n'\r\nhalf_life: durable\r\napplies: universal\r\nclaim_provenance: asserted\r\n---\r\n\r\nbody\r\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md", "old_str": "asserted", "new_str": "guessed",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "claim_provenance: asserted", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical")
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAnInvalidEnvelopeOnABOMPrefixedNote(t *testing.T) {
// Found in round-5 review: the same "encoding property empties
// frontmatterScalars's map" mechanism as the CRLF bypass, one layer
// earlier — a leading UTF-8 BOM (EF BB BF) defeats
// strings.HasPrefix(doc, "---\n") exactly like CRLF did, before that
// prefix is even reached. Notepad's default "UTF-8" save and
// PowerShell's pre-v6 Out-File/Set-Content both emit a BOM, so this is
// a live, plausible authoring path, not an exotic one — same severity
// and same one-line cost as the CRLF fix, fixed the same way rather
// than deferred to hyperguild#138.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("\xef\xbb\xbf---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md", "old_str": "asserted", "new_str": "guessed",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "claim_provenance: asserted", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical")
}
func TestBrainEdit_RejectsAFoldedScalarThatHidesAnInvalidValue(t *testing.T) {
// Found in round-6 review: a different mechanism from the encoding
// family (rounds 1-6 were all about fence detection; this is the field
// extractor). old_str="half_life: durable", new_str="half_life:\n
// garbage-value" turns the field into a YAML block-scalar shape: the
// top-level line is now "half_life:" with an empty inline value, and
// the real value lives on the indented continuation line that follows.
// frontmatterScalars's indentation guard skips that continuation line
// outright, so the field reads as present-with-empty-value —
// present()'s own contract then treats that as absent (a placeholder,
// not an assertion) — and claim.ValidateEnvelope never sees the
// invalid value at all. No encoding quirk needed: one ordinary
// brain_edit call smuggles an out-of-enum value straight past the
// check the field was supposed to be validated by.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md",
"old_str": "half_life: durable",
"new_str": "half_life:\n garbage-value",
})
require.Contains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "half_life: durable", "rejected edit must leave the note byte-identical")
}
func TestBrainEdit_AllowsAValidClaimEnvelopeEdit(t *testing.T) {
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nbody\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md", "old_str": "half_life: durable", "new_str": "half_life: seasonal",
})
require.NotContains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "half_life: seasonal")
}
func TestBrainEdit_UnrelatedEditsSkipTheEnvelopeCheckEntirely(t *testing.T) {
// The gate only engages when old_str/new_str actually mention an
// envelope field name — an ordinary body edit on a note that happens to
// carry a valid envelope must not pay for (or be affected by) a check
// that has nothing to do with it.
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
note := filepath.Join(dir, "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md")
require.NoError(t, os.WriteFile(note,
[]byte("---\ntitle: 'n'\nhalf_life: durable\napplies: universal\nclaim_provenance: asserted\n---\n\nold body\n"), 0o644))
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)
resp := call(t, srv, "brain_edit", map[string]any{
"path": "wiki/homelab/facts/n.md", "old_str": "old body", "new_str": "new body",
})
require.NotContains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
got, err := os.ReadFile(note)
require.NoError(t, err)
assert.Contains(t, string(got), "new body")
}
func TestBrainEditRoot_GovernanceFilesAreNeverEnvelopeChecked(t *testing.T) {
// CLAUDE.md has no claim-envelope concept at all — the check must be
// scoped to notes (ScopeNotes), never applied on the governance path.
srv, _, _, _ := govServer(t)
resp := authCall(t, srv, "Bearer "+capStaticTok, "brain_edit_root", map[string]any{
"path": "CLAUDE.md", "old_str": "# rules", "new_str": "half_life: durable",
})
require.NotContains(t, resp, "error", "%v", resp)
}
func TestBrainEdit_RefusesGovernanceFilesFromTheModelFacingTool(t *testing.T) {
dir := newBrainRepo(t)
srv := mcp.NewServer(dir, nil, nil, nil)