fix(plugins): publish the salt atomically, and omit the hash when there is none

Review finding from @kartik-mem0 on this PR.

O_CREAT|O_EXCL then write leaves a window where the salt file exists and is
empty. Hooks are short-lived processes firing on every tool call and people run
several agent windows, so a concurrent reader lands in that window, reads
nothing, and falls back to a digest of the salt file's own path, memoized for
its whole run. That path is guessable, so the race silently replaced the privacy
control with something an attacker can compute, and hashed the same repository
two ways depending on timing.

The value is now written to a private temp file, fsynced, and published with
os.link, which is atomic and fails if another process already published one.
Link rather than replace, so losing the race adopts their salt instead of
clobbering it. The temp file is removed either way.

The derived fallback is gone rather than fixed. _scoped_digest returns "" when
there is no salt and record() omits the property, because an unsalted digest
over a git remote or a home-directory path is close to plaintext, and shipping
one under a name that says hash is worse than sending nothing.

Three tests: the racing reader never sees the name half-written, a second writer
adopts the first's salt and leaves no temp file, and an unwritable data
directory drops the property instead of emitting a weak one. The old test
asserted the fallback behaviour and is replaced.

265 passed, 8 skipped.

Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01C7tEmH86HAr7GoAAKCEHZb
This commit is contained in:
Saket Aryan
2026-09-16 20:33:54 +05:30
parent f8a9d524be
commit 7710a4e180
8 changed files with 359 additions and 125 deletions
@@ -309,14 +309,59 @@ def test_salt_does_not_touch_the_identity_file(isolated_env):
assert not telemetry._identity_path().exists()
def test_salt_is_stable_when_it_cannot_be_persisted(isolated_env, monkeypatch):
"""A read-only data dir must degrade to a weaker salt, not to random-per-call.
def test_no_salt_means_no_hash_rather_than_an_unsalted_one(isolated_env, monkeypatch):
"""A read-only data dir drops the property; it must not emit a weak digest.
Random per call is unbounded cardinality in PostHog, which is worse than no
salt at all.
The previous fallback was a digest of the salt file's own path, which an
attacker can compute, memoized for the whole process. A property named
repo_hash carrying an effectively unsalted digest is worse than no property:
it reads as protected and is not.
"""
telemetry._salt_cache = ""
monkeypatch.setattr(telemetry.os, "open", lambda *a, **k: (_ for _ in ()).throw(OSError("read-only")))
first = telemetry._install_salt()
assert telemetry._install_salt() == ""
assert telemetry._scoped_digest("git@github.com:acme/secret.git") == ""
def test_a_half_written_salt_is_never_visible_to_another_process(isolated_env, monkeypatch):
"""The window this closes: file created, value not yet written.
O_CREAT|O_EXCL then write leaves the name present and empty in between. A
hook reading it there used to get "", fall back to the path digest and cache
that for its whole run, so the same repo hashed two ways depending on timing.
Publishing by link means the name either does not exist or is complete.
"""
telemetry._salt_cache = ""
assert telemetry._install_salt() == first
salt_path = telemetry._salt_path()
observed = []
real_link = telemetry.os.link
def observing_link(source, target):
# Stand where the racing reader stands: after the temp file is written,
# before the real name exists.
observed.append(salt_path.exists())
return real_link(source, target)
monkeypatch.setattr(telemetry.os, "link", observing_link)
salt = telemetry._install_salt()
assert observed == [False], "the salt name existed before it held a value"
assert len(salt) == 32
assert salt_path.read_text(encoding="utf-8").strip() == salt
def test_a_concurrent_writer_does_not_clobber_the_published_salt(isolated_env):
"""Second process to finish must adopt the first one's salt, not replace it.
os.link rather than os.replace is what makes losing the race harmless.
"""
telemetry._salt_cache = ""
first = telemetry._install_salt()
telemetry._salt_cache = ""
second = telemetry._install_salt()
assert second == first
assert not list(telemetry._salt_path().parent.glob("telemetry-salt.*.tmp")), "temp file left behind"