If you discover a security vulnerability in Codex Patcher, please report it responsibly:

• Open a public GitHub issue
• Discuss the vulnerability publicly before it's fixed
• Exploit the vulnerability beyond proof-of-concept

1. Email the maintainers directly with:

   • Description of the vulnerability
   • Steps to reproduce
   • Potential impact assessment
   • Any suggested fixes (optional)

2. Allow reasonable time for us to address the issue before public disclosure (typically 90 days)

3. Coordinate disclosure with us

Codex Patcher is designed with security as a core principle:

• All file operations are restricted to the workspace root
• Paths are canonicalized to prevent directory traversal
• Symlinks escaping the workspace are rejected
• Forbidden directories (~/.cargo, ~/.rustup, target/) are blocked

• Before-text verification prevents stale edits
• Atomic writes prevent partial file corruption
• Parse validation catches syntax errors before commit
• UTF-8 validation prevents encoding issues

Codex Patcher trusts:

• The workspace root path provided by the user
• Patch definition files in the patches/ directory
• The Rust toolchain for compilation validation

Codex Patcher does NOT trust:

• File contents (always verified before editing)
• Symlinks (always canonicalized)
• External paths (always validated against workspace)

When using Codex Patcher:

1. Review patch definitions before applying them
2. Use --dry-run to preview changes
3. Keep patches in version control for auditability
4. Don't run as root (not required, not recommended)

Path validation and file editing are separate operations. In theory, a file could be replaced between validation and edit. Mitigations:

• Atomic writes prevent partial corruption
• Before-text verification catches unexpected changes
• Workspace is assumed to be under user's control

Large files or complex patch patterns could cause high memory/CPU usage. This is not considered a security vulnerability since the tool runs locally on trusted input.

Security fixes are released as patch versions (e.g., 0.1.1, 0.1.2) and announced via:

• GitHub Security Advisories
• Release notes
• Changelog

Update promptly when security releases are available.