GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p Impact Following the path-safety patches in [GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47](https://github.com/umanio-agency/skillctl/security/advisories/GHSA-wx3m
Attackers can wipe directories, cause DoS, or forge commits via malicious skill files or CLI arguments in skillctl.
- Exploited in the wild
- Not known
- Login needed
- Not needed
- Attackable
- Local or same network only
- Victim action needed
- A user has to click or open something
- Fix
- Available
What is GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p?
GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p is a path traversal vulnerability in skillctl, published on 22 Jun 2026. It can only be exploited from the same machine or local network, and only if a user opens a file or follows a link.
Official description
Impact
Following the path-safety patches in GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47 (v0.1.2), a comprehensive multi-angle audit surfaced five further vulnerabilities, now patched in v0.1.3:
source_shaargument injection ingit ls-tree(CRITICAL).InstalledSkill.source_shadeserialized from.skills.toml(committed, PR-mergeable) flowed unvalidated intogit ls-tree -r -z <refspec> -- <path>. Because the refspec sits before--, an attacker who slipped a malicious.skills.tomlinto a PR could setsource_sha = "--name-only"/--abbrev=0/--output=…and corrupt the diff classifier (which drivespull/pushdestructive decisions), or forge a divergence state to trickpush --on-divergence overwriteinto clobbering the wrong content.- FIFO / device / socket denial-of-service in
copy_dir_all(CRITICAL). The file-type branch only checkedis_dir()/is_symlink(); a FIFO inside a skill folder fell through tofs::copy, which blocks indefinitely waiting for a writer. A character device like/dev/zerowould read until OOM. Reachable onskillctl addagainst any adversarial library. add --destarbitrary-directory wipe in agent mode (HIGH).--destaccepted absolute paths and..traversal without validation, so a single invocationskillctl add --dest /Users/victim/.ssh --on-conflict overwrite --skill <maliciously-named>wouldremove_dir_allarbitrary directories — no.skills.tomlround-trip required. Reachable in any non-interactive / agent-driven workflow where flag values may be attacker-supplied.- Commit-message trailer forgery via skill names (HIGH). Skill names were spliced verbatim into
git commit -m "update skill: <name>"and into thecommit.messagefield of--jsonoutput. A skill namedfoo\nCo-Authored-By: evil@xproduced a forged commit trailer that downstream tooling (Linear, GitHub commit-bot, release-notes scrapers) treats as real authorship metadata. - Hardlink exfiltration via the round-trip (HIGH).
fs::symlink_metadatareports a regular file for hardlinks (shared inode), andfs::copyreads the target content. An untrusted agent writing<project>/my-skill/dataas a hardlink to~/.ssh/id_rsawould have shipped the SSH key content to the (possibly public) library on the nextskillctl pushordetect.
Patches
Fixed in v0.1.3:
InstalledSkill::validaterejects anysource_shathat isn't 40–64 hex characters.fs_util::copy_dir_allonly allows regular files and directories; FIFO / socket / device / other special files are rejected withAppError::Config.commands::add::resolve_destinationrejects..unconditionally and rejects absolute paths in non-interactive /--jsonmode.- New
src/sanitize.rsmodule:validate_identifier(strict, no control bytes / newlines / ESC, used for skillname+ individualtags) andvalidate_message_safe(lenient, allows\n+\t, rejects\r+ DEL + C0/C1 controls, used fordescriptionand--message). Wired at theskill::discoverandread_tagsboundaries so poisoned skills are dropped silently and poisoned descriptions/tags are stripped from otherwise-valid skills. fs_util::copy_dir_allchecksmetadata.nlink() > 1on regular files (Unix) and refuses hardlinked content.
All checks are lexical or single-syscall (symlink_metadata, metadata). No canonicalize, no TOCTOU windows. 23 new unit + integration tests cover each rejection class; cargo test: 95 pass; clippy clean; cargo audit clean.
Workarounds
Upgrade to v0.1.3. Pre-patch mitigations are awkward but possible:
- Audit every
.skills.tomlsource_shafield before runningskillctl pull/push/detect. - Audit library content for FIFO / device files and hardlinks before running
skillctl add. - Never invoke
skillctl addwith attacker-controllable--destvalues in agent / CI contexts. - Never use
--messagewith attacker-controlled content.
Credit
The findings were surfaced by a maintainer-led multi-angle audit (6 parallel sub-agents, one per threat-model dimension) following the firebaguette audit that motivated v0.1.2. The methodology (cross-agent convergence to identify the most exploitable items) is documented in the project's internal decisions log; the strongest signal was the four-of-six independent convergence on the source_sha vector.
Resources
- Fix commit: 28dfce3
- Release: https://github.com/umanio-agency/skillctl/releases/tag/v0.1.3
- Prior advisory (path-safety + symlinks): GHSA-wx3m-whqv-xv47
Which versions are affected by GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p?
2 open source packages ship an affected version, including skillctl.
| Package | Affected | Fixed in |
|---|---|---|
skillctl crates.io | All versions | 0.1.3 |
skillctl crates.io | All versions | 0.1.3 |
How do I fix GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p?
Upgrade skillctl to 0.1.3 or later.
Upgrade, and resolve every user-supplied path against an allowed base folder before opening it. More about Path traversal.
Is GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p being exploited?
There is no known exploitation of GHSA-74p7-6h78-gw8p in the wild and no public exploit code.