Version: 1.0 (Frozen)

The security of ContextVault is important to us.

We appreciate responsible security research and encourage the responsible disclosure of security vulnerabilities.

This document explains how to report security issues and how security is managed within the project.

Security updates are provided only for officially supported releases.

Please do not report security vulnerabilities through public GitHub issues.

Instead, report them privately to the project maintainers.

Your report should include:

• A clear description of the vulnerability
• Steps to reproduce the issue
• Expected behavior
• Actual behavior
• Affected version(s)
• Operating system
• Proof-of-concept (if safe)
• Screenshots or logs (if applicable)

Please avoid including sensitive personal information.

We request that security researchers:

• Report vulnerabilities privately.
• Allow reasonable time for investigation.
• Avoid public disclosure until a fix is available.
• Avoid exploiting vulnerabilities beyond what is necessary to demonstrate the issue.
• Avoid accessing or modifying data that does not belong to you.

Responsible disclosure helps protect all users of the project.

Examples include:

• Remote Code Execution (RCE)
• Arbitrary File Read
• Arbitrary File Write
• Path Traversal
• Privilege Escalation
• Authentication Bypass
• Authorization Issues
• Command Injection
• Unsafe Deserialization
• Directory Traversal
• Insecure Temporary File Handling
• Credential Exposure
• Information Disclosure
• Browser Automation Security Issues
• Archive Integrity Issues
• Dependency Supply Chain Risks
• Build Pipeline Security Issues

Examples include:

• Minor UI bugs
• Documentation errors
• Spelling mistakes
• Cosmetic issues
• Feature requests
• General performance improvements
• Unsupported third-party environments

ContextVault follows these principles:

• Least Privilege
• Secure by Default
• Explicit Validation
• Defense in Depth
• Principle of Least Surprise
• Fail Securely
• Minimal Attack Surface

Security is considered during architecture, implementation, and release.

The project follows these engineering practices:

• Input validation
• Output validation
• Structured logging
• Secure exception handling
• Safe resource cleanup
• Explicit permission handling
• Version-pinned dependencies
• Reproducible builds

Only approved dependencies are permitted.

Before introducing a dependency, verify:

• Active maintenance
• Trusted source
• Compatible license
• Nuitka compatibility
• GitHub Actions compatibility
• No duplicate functionality

Dependencies should remain version-locked for release builds.

Never commit:

• Passwords
• API Keys
• OAuth Tokens
• Access Tokens
• SSH Keys
• Private Certificates
• Session Cookies
• Encryption Keys

Secrets must never appear in:

• Source code
• Configuration files committed to Git
• Documentation
• Logs
• Example files

Avoid storing sensitive information.

If sensitive data must be processed:

• Validate input.
• Minimize retention.
• Clear temporary data promptly.
• Avoid unnecessary logging.

Browser automation must:

• Use the official supported browser architecture.
• Respect user browser profiles.
• Avoid unsafe browser modifications.
• Close browser resources correctly.

The project must never intentionally weaken browser security settings.

The application must:

• Validate file paths.
• Avoid path traversal.
• Avoid unsafe overwrite operations.
• Use relative project paths where appropriate.
• Handle permissions gracefully.

Never trust externally supplied file paths without validation.

Generated archives must:

• Preserve data integrity.
• Include required metadata.
• Avoid writing outside the intended destination.
• Reject invalid or corrupted structures.

Validate all external input including:

• User input
• Configuration files
• JSON
• HTML
• Metadata
• Archive manifests
• File paths

Reject malformed or unexpected data early.

Logs should contain enough information to diagnose problems.

Logs must never expose:

• Passwords
• Tokens
• Secrets
• Personal credentials
• Sensitive session information

Every release should be built from a clean environment.

The release process should verify:

• Locked dependency versions
• Build integrity
• Package integrity
• Runtime completeness

Do not publish builds with unresolved security concerns.

AI-generated code must:

• Follow secure coding practices.
• Avoid introducing vulnerabilities.
• Preserve existing security controls.
• Validate external input.
• Avoid unsafe subprocess usage.
• Avoid hardcoded secrets.
• Respect frozen project architecture.

AI must never weaken security in order to simplify implementation.

Before approving a release, verify:

• No hardcoded secrets
• No sensitive information in logs
• Input validation implemented
• Safe file operations
• Safe browser operations
• Dependency integrity verified
• Version locking verified
• Runtime integrity verified
• Build pipeline integrity verified

When a valid vulnerability is reported:

1. Acknowledge receipt.
2. Confirm the issue.
3. Assess severity.
4. Develop a fix.
5. Test the fix.
6. Publish the fix.
7. Disclose the issue responsibly after remediation, when appropriate.

This policy applies to:

• Source Code
• Build Pipeline
• GitHub Actions
• Runtime Package
• Browser Automation
• Archive Generation
• Official Releases
• Official Documentation

Third-party software is governed by its own security policies.

Security is a continuous engineering process rather than a one-time review.

Every contribution, pull request, dependency update, and release should improve or preserve the project's security posture.

No feature, optimization, or architectural change should reduce the security, integrity, or reliability of ContextVault.