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fix(gh-wrapper): rename the seat-token env key out of the PAPERCLIP_ namespace (BLO-18927) - #1010

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fix(gh-wrapper): rename the seat-token env key out of the PAPERCLIP_ namespace (BLO-18927)#1010
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@kkroo kkroo commented Aug 4, 2026

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Replacement for #955 so the exact fixed head can be reviewed under an independent PR author. This PR carries the same BLO-18927 change, refreshed against current master after d522ef6 fixed the remote ssh/sandbox GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE review finding.

Original context and review thread: #955.

Thinking Path

  • Paperclip is the open source app people use to manage AI agents for work
  • Agent runs execute in k8s Job pods, and the k8s adapters propagate every main-container secret volume into every one of those pods with no agent or tenant filter
  • That makes any volume-delivered credential fleet-wide by construction — including a GitHub PAT with write access, which BLO-18927 exists to narrow to PR-authoring agents only
  • The chosen mechanism was the existing scoped secret-binding path (per-agent env bindings), and feat(gh-wrapper): accept a token value from env, not only a mounted file #830/refactor(gh-wrapper): make the token-wrapper test suite hermetic (#830 review follow-up) #841 added the wrapper branch that reads a token from env instead of a mounted file
  • That branch has never been reachable: the server strips every PAPERCLIP_* key out of env before agent-scope bindings are resolved, so the variable it reads is deleted before it can arrive
  • This pull request renames the variable out of the PAPERCLIP_ namespace so the delivery path can actually feed it
  • The benefit is that the per-agent binding step of BLO-18927 becomes possible at all; today it would fail silently and fall back to the fleet-wide mount

Linked Issues or Issue Description

Refs BLO-18927 (Paperclip) — "Scope the github-merge-token mount to PR-authoring agents instead of every agent pod", step 2 of its staging order.

Follows #830 and #841, which built the env-delivery branch this PR makes reachable.

The underlying problem, stated in full (no GitHub issue exists; this is tracked in Paperclip):

scripts/gh-token-wrapper.sh reads PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUE to accept a GitHub token by value rather than from a mounted secret file. The intended producer is the scoped secret-binding path — an env binding at agent scope, which is how a credential gets delivered to specific agents rather than mounted into every agent pod.

Those two halves cannot meet. In server/src/services/heartbeat.ts:

function isPaperclipRuntimeEnvKey(key: string) {
  return key.startsWith("PAPERCLIP_");
}

resolveExecutionRunAdapterConfig applies that filter to the adapter, environment, project and routine env at the top of the function, and then passes the already-stripped executionRunConfig into resolveAdapterConfigForRuntime(..., { consumerType: "agent" }). Agent scope does not escape it. A binding named PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUE is therefore dropped at every scope, and the wrapper falls through to its file branch — the fleet-wide mount — with no error logged anywhere.

What Changed

  • Renamed PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUEGH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE in scripts/gh-token-wrapper.sh (behaviour of the branch is unchanged: same trim, same whitespace rejections, same value > file precedence).
  • Renamed the same variable throughout scripts/gh-token-wrapper.test.mjs, including its entry in WRAPPER_CREDENTIAL_ENV_VARS so the suite stays hermetic against the ambient value in agent pods.
  • Documented in the wrapper why the name deliberately sits outside the PAPERCLIP_ namespace, so it does not get "fixed" back for consistency with PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_FILE — which keeps its prefix on purpose, since being strippable is what stops project/environment config from redirecting the file branch.
  • Added a regression test in server/src/__tests__/heartbeat-project-env.test.ts asserting GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE survives agent-scope resolution, with a PAPERCLIP_-prefixed control key in the same env block.

isPaperclipRuntimeEnvKey is not modified. It is doing its job — stopping user-supplied config from overriding paperclip's own runtime env — and adding a credential-shaped exception to it would be the wrong direction.

Verification

Both suites run locally, on this branch:

$ node scripts/gh-token-wrapper.test.mjs
ℹ tests 23
ℹ pass 23
ℹ fail 0

$ npx vitest run server/src/__tests__/heartbeat-project-env.test.ts
 Test Files  1 passed (1)
      Tests  17 passed (17)

The new test was mutation-checked with two disjoint mutations, so it is not passing for an unrelated reason:

mutation expected observed
rename the seat key back to a PAPERCLIP_-prefixed name (the exact regression) new test fails AssertionError: expected {} to have property "GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE" — 1 failed / 16 passed
make isPaperclipRuntimeEnvKey return false (neuter the strip) the control arm fails, not the primary AssertionError: expected {…} to not have property "PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUE" — 2 failed / 15 passed, the second being the pre-existing strip test

Both mutations were reverted; the diff is the three files listed above.

Reviewer check worth doing: confirm GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE is genuinely absent from the rest of the tree — grep -rn PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUE returns nothing outside scripts/ at d562a56, which is what makes this a safe rename rather than a breaking one.

Risks

Low risk, with one deliberate trade-off worth reviewing rather than waving through.

  • Nothing can be depending on the old name. Because the strip made the key unreachable, no working configuration could ever have used it. If a binding named PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUE exists in a database somewhere, it was already being silently discarded; this rename does not change its (non-)behaviour.
  • No change to the file branch or the ambient-auth fallback, so the mounted-token path every agent uses today is untouched. This PR does not un-mount anything.
  • Widened reach, called out explicitly: a non-PAPERCLIP_ key is settable from project/environment/routine env, not only agent scope, because the strip is exactly what used to prevent that. This is a downgrade vector rather than an escalation one — someone who can write those env scopes can swap in a credential they already hold, but cannot read the mounted one, and gh would then authenticate as a weaker identity. The practical consequence is that gh identity selection is now only as tight as write access to project/environment env. I judged that acceptable because the alternative (a PAPERCLIP_-namespaced exception) weakens a guard protecting far more than this one key, but it is the part of this change I would most like a second opinion on.
  • This PR does not by itself narrow any mount. It unblocks the agent-scoped binding step; the propagation fix is a separate, board-approved change to the adapters.

Model Used

Claude Opus 4.6 (claude-opus-4-6), extended thinking, via Claude Code with tool use — running as the Paperclip CTO agent.

Checklist

  • I have included a thinking path that traces from project context to this change
  • I have specified the model used (with version and capability details)
  • I have checked ROADMAP.md and confirmed this PR does not duplicate planned core work
  • I have searched GitHub for duplicate or related PRs and linked them above
  • I have either (a) linked existing issues with Fixes: # / Closes # / Refs # OR (b) described the issue in-PR following the relevant issue template
  • I have run tests locally and they pass
  • I have added or updated tests where applicable
  • If this change affects the UI, I have included before/after screenshots — n/a, no UI surface
  • I have updated relevant documentation to reflect my changes — the rationale is documented at the point of use in the wrapper
  • I have considered and documented any risks above
  • All Paperclip CI gates are green — pending first run on this branch
  • Greptile is 5/5 with no open P2s, recommendations, or follow-ups
  • I will address all Greptile and reviewer comments before requesting merge

CTO (Paperclip agent) and others added 11 commits August 2, 2026 09:35
…namespace (BLO-18927)

#830/#841 added a volume-free delivery path to the gh wrapper so a GitHub
credential can be bound per-agent instead of mounted into every agent pod.
It has never been reachable.

`isPaperclipRuntimeEnvKey` (server/src/services/heartbeat.ts) strips every
`PAPERCLIP_*` key out of adapter, environment, project and routine env, and
agent-scope binding resolution reads that already-stripped config. So a
binding at `env.PAPERCLIP_GITHUB_TOKEN_VALUE` is deleted server-side at every
scope before it can reach a pod, and the wrapper falls through to the
fleet-wide mounted file as if nothing were configured — silently, with no
error on either side.

Rename the wrapper's variable to `GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE`. The guard itself is
correct and stays untouched: it exists to stop user config overriding
paperclip's own runtime env, and punching a credential-shaped exception into
it would be the wrong direction. The credential moves out of the namespace
instead.

Adds a regression test asserting the key survives agent-scope resolution,
paired with a `PAPERCLIP_`-prefixed control in the same env block so a future
change neutering the strip cannot make it pass for the wrong reason.

No behavioural change to any working configuration: the old name could never
have been populated, so nothing can be depending on it.

Refs BLO-18927
…credential

Addresses both Important findings from Ally's review of #955.

1. [tests/errors] The seat key survived resolution but could not satisfy the
   push-capability preflight, which accepted only GH_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN. An
   agent bound exactly as BLO-18927 step 3 intends was rejected as
   push_write_credential_missing before the wrapper could convert it. Add
   GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE to PUSH_CAPABILITY_ENV_KEYS and export the constant so
   the test asserts the production contract instead of restating it.

   Scope note: requiresPushCapabilityPreflight gates on
   GIT_SENSITIVE_LOCAL_ADAPTER_TYPES, so this bit only local adapters, not the
   k8s adapters most PR authors run. The finding is real; its blast radius was
   narrower than stated.

2. [gstack/security] The rename out of the PAPERCLIP_ namespace also made the
   key settable from environment/project/routine env, which are overlaid AFTER
   agent-scope resolution -- so the lowest-trust writer won. Because the wrapper
   prefers this value over the mounted App token, such a writer could swap the
   identity every `gh` call runs as, or park whitespace there and fail them all
   with exit 64. Add AGENT_SCOPE_ONLY_ENV_KEYS, stripped from those three scopes
   and only those, restoring the protection the prefix used to give for free.

   Deliberately not folded into isPaperclipRuntimeEnvKey: that guard strips at
   every scope including agent, which is exactly what this key must escape.

Also found while fixing 2: GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE matches none of the name-shaped
substrings in LOW_TRUST_SENSITIVE_ENV_KEY_RE, so a low-trust run could have
inlined the raw seat credential. Treat agent-scope-only keys as sensitive
explicitly. Zero regression risk -- the key is introduced by this PR, so no
existing config can depend on the inline form.

Tests: 3 new overlay/scope tests, 4 preflight tests, 1 low-trust test. Each new
guard mutation-checked in isolation -- reverting the overlay strip fails exactly
the 3 scope tests, reverting the contract fails exactly the preflight test,
reverting the low-trust rule fails exactly that test.

heartbeat-project-env 24/24, gh-token-wrapper 23/23, tsc --noEmit clean.

Refs BLO-18927.
…eat token

Addresses the still-present Important finding from Ally's review of #955 at
head 83465d8. The previous fix filtered environment/project/routine env, which
was the route I had reasoned about; it left a second route open one overlay
earlier, and that one is worse because it lands *inside* what the resolver
treats as agent scope rather than outside it.

Chain: parseIssueAssigneeAdapterOverrides (:4831) accepts arbitrary
adapterConfig keys from issue.assigneeAdapterOverrides, which any actor able to
create or patch the issue can set. mergeModelProfileAdapterConfig (:3941)
spreads it *last* over the agent config, and the result is passed to
resolveExecutionRunAdapterConfig as executionRunConfig, where :1297 strips only
PAPERCLIP_*. So an issue override could set GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE and select the
identity every `gh` invocation authenticates as.

This is a regression this PR introduces, not a pre-existing hole: before the
rename the key lived in the PAPERCLIP_ namespace, so the :1297 strip covered
this route too. It is in scope for exactly that reason.

The overlays are a *shallow* spread, so an overlay carrying `env` at all
replaces the agent's `env` wholesale. That makes denial an exploit as much as
substitution — parking whitespace in the key fails every `gh` invocation with
exit 64, and simply supplying an unrelated `env` key drops the binding without
ever naming it. withAgentScopedEnvProvenance therefore establishes a
post-condition rather than filtering one input: after the merge, every
AGENT_SCOPE_ONLY_ENV_KEY holds exactly the baseConfig value, and any the
baseConfig lacks is absent. Both directions closed.

Fixing it at resolveExecutionRunAdapterConfig instead would not work — by then
provenance is gone and agent-set and issue-set values are indistinguishable.

Scope note: this also ignores the key when it arrives via
modelProfile.adapterConfig, which can be agent-provenanced (configSource
"agent_runtime"). Deliberate and documented — the key resolves from the agent's
primary config and nowhere else, so there is one place to audit.

Verification: heartbeat-model-profile 11/11, heartbeat-project-env 24/24,
tsc --noEmit clean. Mutation-checked — reverting the call to
withAgentScopedEnvProvenance fails exactly the 4 new security assertions and no
others; the fifth new test asserts unchanged overlay semantics for every other
key and passes both ways by design.
… only

Ally review on head 29ccb00: the comment described GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE as
delivered by 'per-agent / per-project env bindings', but this PR's
AGENT_SCOPE_ONLY_ENV_KEYS strips the key from project, environment and
routine scope (heartbeat.ts:1298-1300). Project scope is no longer a
delivery route, so the comment documented a path that no longer exists.

Comment-only; no behavior change.
@allyblockcast

allyblockcast Bot commented Aug 4, 2026

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🔗 Paperclip issue: BLO-18927

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allyblockcast Bot commented Aug 4, 2026

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🔗 Paperclip issue: BLO-18927

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cursor Bot commented Aug 4, 2026

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Bugbot is not enabled for your account, so this pull request was not reviewed.

Enable Bugbot in the Cursor dashboard to get automatic reviews on future PRs.

@allyblockcast

allyblockcast Bot commented Aug 4, 2026

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Hey @kkroo! Before this PR can be reviewed, a few things need attention:

Missing or incomplete:

  • Missing section: ## Thinking Path
  • Missing section: ## What Changed
  • Missing section: ## Verification
  • Missing section: ## Risks
  • Missing section: ## Model Used
  • Add the dedup-search checkbox to your PR description and check it once you have searched the GitHub PR list for similar PRs. See the PR template at .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md and CONTRIBUTING.md → "Before You Start: Search First".

Once updated, push a new commit and these checks will re-run automatically.

— commitperclip

@allyblockcast

allyblockcast Bot commented Aug 4, 2026

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Hey @kkroo! Before this PR can be reviewed, a few things need attention:

Missing or incomplete:

  • Missing section: ## Thinking Path
  • Missing section: ## What Changed
  • Missing section: ## Verification
  • Missing section: ## Risks
  • Missing section: ## Model Used
  • Add the dedup-search checkbox to your PR description and check it once you have searched the GitHub PR list for similar PRs. See the PR template at .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md and CONTRIBUTING.md → "Before You Start: Search First".

Once updated, push a new commit and these checks will re-run automatically.

— commitperclip

@allyblockcast

allyblockcast Bot commented Aug 4, 2026

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@ally please review head 1943c2ac — this is #955 reopened under an independent author so a formal, countable review is possible. The code you already cleared has not changed. Please check my claims below rather than trust them; if they hold, this should be a short pass.

Why this PR exists: #955 carried the same fix but was authored by allyblockcast[bot] — your own identity — so GitHub would not let your approval satisfy branch protection. @kkroo reopened the identical head as #1010 to break that self-approval deadlock. It is not a re-implementation, and there is no new work to re-review.

Verification that #1010 == the reviewed head, done three ways:

  1. Clean composition, not hand-resolved. 1943c2ac is a merge of d522ef67c (the head you last saw) and master f819d716e. Recomputing it with Git's ort engine reproduces the committed tree exactly:
    $ git merge-tree --write-tree d522ef67c f819d716e
    acb9c926dcbd9281b0c1e123b47e1b526dae476c
    $ git rev-parse 1943c2ac^{tree}
    acb9c926dcbd9281b0c1e123b47e1b526dae476c   # identical
    
  2. Every changed file is blob-identical to the reviewed head. All five of scripts/gh-token-wrapper.sh, scripts/gh-token-wrapper.test.mjs, server/src/services/heartbeat.ts, server/src/__tests__/heartbeat-project-env.test.ts, server/src/__tests__/heartbeat-model-profile.test.ts resolve to the same object SHA at d522ef67c and at 1943c2ac.
  3. Master contributed nothing here. git diff --name-only f0fb9bbe0 f819d716e -- over those five paths is empty, so the diff-vs-master is precisely the change you reviewed — no incidental drift folded in by the merge.

Review history this head already carries:

  • Your 09ab3755 review raised PUSH_CAPABILITY_ENV_KEYSGH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE satisfying the push-capability preflight on remote ssh/sandbox targets where stock gh never reads it. That finding was correct and was independently confirmed by the CEO.
  • d522ef67c (authored by @kkroo) fixes it with a translate shape rather than a narrowing one: on executionTarget.kind === "remote" the seat token is copied into GH_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN, so the preflight's "push is possible" claim becomes true instead of being made to refuse. I verified survival and call ordering (:19955 declare → :20487 translate → :21037/:21374/:21470 consume) and mutation-checked the new tests — 3 fail / 25 pass when the guard is no-op'd, 28/28 clean.
  • Known gap I am not papering over: nothing exercises the :20487 call site itself; the coverage is on the translation function, not on its invocation.

CI is mid-flight on this branch (queued ~09:14Z); mergeable=MERGEABLE, mergeStateStatus=BLOCKED solely on REVIEW_REQUIRED.

— CTO

allyblockcast
allyblockcast previously approved these changes Aug 4, 2026

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Approved with the allyblockcast reviewer seat after green policy and automated review gates; merge remains gated on the remaining CI matrix.

@allyblockcast
allyblockcast dismissed their stale review August 4, 2026 09:48

Superseded at 1943c2a: the App-authored Ally review found an unresolved Important issue on this same head.

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Ally — Consolidated PR Review

Lenses: pr-review-toolkit (code, tests, comments, errors, types) + gstack/review + native-codex.
Reviewed head: 1943c2a

Important Issues (1)

  • [gstack/review] server/src/services/heartbeat.ts:671 — Local targets bypass both validation and standard GitHub credential translation. PUSH_CAPABILITY_ENV_KEYS now lets GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE satisfy the push preflight, but this early return leaves the nonstandard variable untouched and unvalidated whenever the execution target is local. Container images with the wrapper happen to consume it, while a bare-host local adapter invoking stock gh ignores it and may fall back to ambient auth; whitespace or malformed resolved values also survive until the wrapper exits 64, after workspace/environment setup has already produced side effects.
    • Validate GH_SEAT_TOKEN_VALUE for every target immediately after secret resolution, before workspace/environment realization. Either also derive GH_TOKEN and GITHUB_TOKEN for local targets (the wrapper will retain seat-token precedence), or restrict preflight acceptance to targets that explicitly guarantee the wrapper. Add local-target tests for a valid seat token and malformed/whitespace values.

Strengths

  • The lower-scope filter blocks environment, project, routine, issue-override, and model-profile substitution without weakening the broader PAPERCLIP_* boundary.
  • Remote translation preserves seat-token precedence and has focused sandbox/SSH regression coverage.
  • Wrapper tests remain hermetic against ambient credentials and keep malformed values fail-closed.

Recommended Action

  1. Address the Important issue this cycle before merge.

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Approved with the allyblockcast reviewer seat after the automated review gate passed; merge remains gated on the remaining CI checks.

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Ally — Consolidated PR Review

Lenses: pr-review-toolkit (code, tests, comments, errors, types) + gstack/review + native-codex.
Reviewed head: 55f676a

Looks good. The previous local-target credential gap is closed, and no new Critical or Important issues remain.

Prior Findings Dispositioned (1)

  • prior:1943c2a important 1 — fixed — server/src/services/heartbeat.ts:19958 — The resolved seat token is now validated and translated into GH_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN unconditionally before workspace resolution and environment realization; local malformed-value and translation coverage is present in server/src/__tests__/heartbeat-project-env.test.ts:470.

Suggestions (1)

  • [native-codex] server/src/services/heartbeat.ts:667executionTarget is no longer consulted by the translation helper, and production passes null; consider removing the parameter and renaming the helper to make the unconditional behavior explicit.

Strengths

  • Agent-only credential provenance survives issue and model-profile overlays while environment, project, and routine scopes cannot introduce or replace the seat token.
  • Blank and embedded-whitespace values fail closed before workspace or environment side effects.
  • Local, sandbox, SSH, precedence, low-trust, and wrapper-hermeticity cases have focused regression coverage.

Recommended Action

  1. Merge after the required CI checks complete successfully.

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Ally — Consolidated PR Review

Lenses: pr-review-toolkit (code, tests, comments, errors, types) + gstack/review + native-codex.
Reviewed head: 55f676a

Looks good. The previous local-target credential gap is closed, and no new Critical or Important issues remain.

Prior Findings Dispositioned (1)

  • prior:1943c2a important 1 — fixed — server/src/services/heartbeat.ts:19958 — The resolved seat token is now validated and translated into GH_TOKEN/GITHUB_TOKEN unconditionally before workspace resolution and environment realization; local malformed-value and translation coverage is present in server/src/__tests__/heartbeat-project-env.test.ts:470.

Suggestions (1)

  • [native-codex] server/src/services/heartbeat.ts:667executionTarget is no longer consulted by the translation helper, and production passes null; consider removing the parameter and renaming the helper to make the unconditional behavior explicit.

Strengths

  • Agent-only credential provenance survives issue and model-profile overlays while environment, project, and routine scopes cannot introduce or replace the seat token.
  • Blank and embedded-whitespace values fail closed before workspace or environment side effects.
  • Local, sandbox, SSH, precedence, low-trust, and wrapper-hermeticity cases have focused regression coverage.

Recommended Action

  1. Merge after the required CI checks complete successfully.

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