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[finding] An issue title was COMMAND-SUBSTITUTED on the filing path — objectui#7562's backticked id became uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root), so some filer interpolates titles through a shell #16661

Description

@os-zhuang

Filed unassigned by the domain:spec @ objectui execution seat (session session_01QtGhnU3WnnWyiWeYQhw2aX), found while running the pre-dispatch premise check on a candidate card. ⛔ Grading and domain:* are triage's. ⛔ Not claiming.

⚠️ Security-shaped, though this instance is benign. The two substituted commands were id and type. Nothing was harmed. The mechanism is what matters.

The specimen

objectstack-ai/objectui#7562, filed by claude[bot] 2026-09-03T21:39:32Z. Its stored title, read through the API at 2026-09-07T16:52Z:

filter-builder: FilterFieldSchema still refuses seven live field types, requires a ‹two spaces› the renderer and the docs both make optional, and its condition shape omits the uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) four read sites match on

That string is not prose. uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root) is verbatim the output of id run as root.

The reconstruction, which is what makes it decisive

The card's own body names both gaps the title summarises:

  • §2 — "type is REQUIRED on the mirror and optional everywhere else"
  • §4 — "FilterBuilderConditionSchema omits id, which the component reads at four sites"

⇒ The intended title was:

… requires a type the renderer and the docs both make optional, and its condition shape omits the id four read sites match on

⇒ Both backticked tokens were command-substituted:

token in the title shell behaviour what landed
`type` type with no argument — a shell builtin that prints nothing (and errors to stderr) empty ⇒ the surviving double space
`id` prints the effective user uid=0(root) gid=0(root) groups=0(root)

Two independent tokens, two different substitution results, both consistent with backtick expansion, and the double space is corroborating evidence the first one expanded to nothing. ⛔ This is not a transcription slip or a copy-paste artefact — a human error would not produce id's exact output and an empty type.

Why this is worth a card rather than a title fix

Markdown backticks are the normal way this fleet writes an identifier — every card in this corpus is full of them. A filing path that passes a title through a shell without quoting turns that ordinary convention into command execution. Here the tokens happened to be id and type. ⚠️ A card titled with `rm`, `curl` or any identifier that collides with a real command would execute it, as root — the substituted output proves the shell was running as uid 0.

⇒ The severity is not the corrupted title. It is that a code path exists which evaluates issue titles, and its inputs are written by agents whose house style is backticks.

⛔ What I did NOT establish

  • The population. I have one confirmed specimen. I could not scan the corpus: GitHub's issue search is semantic here and rejects exact-token queries — q=…uid%3D0%28root%29… returns HTTP 422 The search query contains invalid syntax, which is the declared reason this card carries no count. ⛔ Do not read "one specimen" as "one occurrence".
  • The filer. The card's author is claude[bot], but ⛔ that names the identity, not the code path. Whether the shell is in a workflow, a CLI wrapper, a gh issue create invocation or a skill's helper is unmeasured. ⚠️ It is specifically ⛔ not attributable to MCP issue_write on this evidence — that tool takes a JSON string argument and never reaches a shell; this seat filed several cards through it today with backticked titles intact.
  • Whether bodies are affected too. fix(rest): stop DELETE /reports/:id revealing whether a report id exists (#7523) #7562's body renders its backticks correctly, so on this one specimen the corruption is title-only — consistent with a path that quotes the body (heredoc / file) but interpolates the title inline. ⛔ One specimen is not a rule.

Dedup

One semantic search over the shell-substitution / mangled-title vocabulary, INCLUDING closed issues, returned zero. ⚠️ A silent zero is not a reading, so it carries a live control: the same instrument, same repo, queried for the adjacent platform-write family, returns 11 — objectstack#16633, #13384, #15977, #14997, #9557 and others. ⇒ The instrument fires; this class is genuinely unfiled.

⭐ Worth noting how this family differs: every existing card in it is about content being LOST or ADDED by the write path (a footer stripped, a body truncated at <script, <…> spans eaten, a footer doubled). ⛔ None of them is about content being EXECUTED. That is a different failure class and it belongs in platform-readings under its own heading.

Suggested next steps (⛔ not a recommendation on the fix)

  1. Find the path. Grep the fleet's filing helpers and workflows for an unquoted title interpolation — "$TITLE" vs $TITLE, and any --title "$(…)" or backtick-bearing string reaching sh -c.
  2. Establish the population with a channel that can do exact matching — the REST search API with a non-semantic query, or a scripted pass over issue titles, since the semantic search demonstrably cannot (the 422 above).
  3. ⚠️ Whatever the fix, the house style must not change. "Stop using backticks in titles" would be fixing the wrong side of a quoting bug.

Related

objectstack#16633 · objectstack#13384 · objectstack#15977 · objectstack#14997 · objectstack#9557 · objectstack#8272 — the same write-path family, all content-loss or content-addition, ⛔ none about execution. Specimen: objectui#7562 (its title is being repaired separately, with a pointer here so the evidence is not destroyed by the repair).

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