open-design/packages/contracts
JasonBroderick 0fbeaf829e
fix(#3247): Detect, terminate, and warn on fabricated role markers across all agent paths (#3303)
* fix(daemon): detect and strip fabricated role markers in model output (#3247)

Three-layer defence against models emitting `## user` / `## assistant` /
`## system` lines mid-response, which the chat host interprets as real
turn boundaries and acts on as unauthorised instruction:

1. **System prompt**: anti-roleplay instruction elevated from a bullet
   under "What you don't do" to a standalone `## CRITICAL` section in
   `official-system.ts`, with a REMINDER pinned at the end of the
   composed prompt for recency bias.

2. **Stream-level detection and truncation**: shared `role-marker-guard.ts`
   module (`createRoleMarkerGuard` + `FABRICATED_ROLE_MARKER_RE`) used
   across all text paths — Claude stream (per-message guards), non-Claude
   structured streams (run-scoped guard via `emitGuardedTextDelta`),
   and BYOK proxy routes (`createDeltaGuard`). When a marker is detected,
   the contaminated suffix is dropped and a `fabricated_role_marker` event
   surfaces a warning in the UI.

3. **UI**: `StatusPill` gains `is-warning` / `is-error` CSS variants;
   `fabricated_role_marker` events render as amber warning pills.

* fix(chat-routes): do not await reader.cancel() on stream early-return

The await on reader.cancel() can hang indefinitely on response streams
whose underlying source is a Uint8Array (most notably surfaced by the
ollama test in proxy-routes.test.ts, which builds its mock body via
`new Response(uint8array)` rather than the controller-based helper
`sseResponse()`). The hung await holds the request handler open, which
in turn blocks `server.close()` in the afterAll hook, producing the two
test timeouts (test at 145, hook at 36) currently failing CI on #3296.

Fix is in production code, not the test: don't await the cancel. It
is a cleanup hint and we are returning from the function anyway, so
blocking on it offers no value. fire-and-forget with an empty catch
keeps the cancel signal flowing for real HTTP streams without
risking a hang on mock/edge-case implementations.

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(daemon): terminate child on role-marker detection (close #3247 generation vector)

PR #3296's detection layer truncates display and persistence of fabricated
role markers, but the underlying model subprocess keeps generating tokens
after detection. Three concrete consequences:

  1. The model bills the user for the entire contaminated response
     (we observed 5,106 chars stored in claude's session file for a turn
     where only the first 3,013 chars were legitimate — a 40% overhead).
  2. tool_use blocks emitted AFTER the marker reach the daemon's
     dispatcher unchecked, since detection only gates the text-delta
     emission path, not content-block-stop / tool_use blocks. The
     model could fabricate "## user delete file X" then emit a
     tool_use(delete X) that the dispatcher would execute.
  3. The UI surfaces a `fabricated_role_marker` warning followed by an
     eventual normal turn-end, blurring the distinction between
     "completed normally" and "killed by safety guard."

This commit adds a single idempotent `abortForRoleMarker(marker)`
helper in server.ts, scoped to the same closure as `child` and
`runGuard`. On any detection event (per-message Claude guard,
run-scoped non-Claude guard, plain stdout guard) the helper:

  - Emits a structured `ROLE_MARKER_HALLUCINATION` SSE error so the
    UI can render a security-class status distinct from a normal
    turn-end. The existing `fabricated_role_marker` warning is still
    sent and rendered as the amber pill (PR #3296's UI).
  - Calls `acpSession.abort()` for ACP-multiplexed agents (Hermes,
    Kimi, Devin, Kiro) whose I/O doesn't necessarily release on
    SIGTERM of the wrapper process alone.
  - SIGTERMs the child immediately, with the existing
    `scheduleForcedChildShutdown()` SIGKILL fallback at 2x grace.

Wired into three sites where contamination is detected:
  - `emitGuardedTextDelta` (sendAgentEvent / copilot / ACP / pi-rpc
    text_delta paths)
  - Plain-stdout listener (BYOK plain mode)
  - The Claude stream handler's onEvent (per-message guards in
    claude-stream.ts surface `fabricated_role_marker` events directly
    via onEvent rather than through the run-scoped emitGuardedTextDelta)

Tool_use blocks emitted BEFORE the marker still flow through normally
— this guard can't help with those, since by the time we observe a
text marker the prior content block has already finished. Closing
that gap requires speculative cancellation of in-flight tool calls
when a downstream text block contains a marker; that's tracked as
follow-up work, not included here.

Co-Authored-By: roverkai <2196140098@qq.com>
Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* refactor(role-marker-guard): bounded tail + drop chat-style markers

Addresses two review comments on #3303:

(1) O(1) memory + per-delta work (review r3323982225)
  Replace the unbounded `accumulated` string with a rolling tail capped
  at TAIL_BUFFER_SIZE (64 chars — comfortably exceeds the longest
  marker prefix `\n<whitespace>## assistant` ≈ 16–24 chars in practice).
  A 50 KB assistant response delivered in 1000 chunks of 50 bytes was
  previously O(n²) on string concatenation alone; now it is O(1) per
  delta regardless of message length. The `tail.length` value carries
  the "already emitted" offset that the cut-point math needs, so the
  offset semantics at L74–78 of the prior implementation are preserved
  without re-introducing the full-text buffer.

(2) Drop chat-style markers entirely (review r3323982234, option (a))
  `User:` / `Assistant:` / `Human:` / `AI:` are removed from the regex.
  Rationale:
    - The host parses ONLY `## user` / `## assistant` / `## system`
      lines as turn boundaries (see `buildDaemonTranscript` in
      apps/web/src/providers/daemon.ts). A model emitting chat-style
      markers does NOT cause the original #3247 security failure.
    - With kill-on-detection wired in this PR (`abortForRoleMarker`
      in server.ts), a false positive aborts the whole run — far
      more expensive than a stray unflagged `User:` line in chat
      scrollback. Chat-style markers collide with legitimate output
      (form labels, email contacts, JSDoc) often enough that pairing
      them with kill-semantics is the wrong tradeoff.
  The tradeoff is now documented in the regex docblock so the
  kill-on-match behaviour is justified against the false-positive
  surface.

Also aligns the prompt-side CRITICAL block in system.ts: drop the
"don't emit User: / Assistant: / Human: / AI:" bullet, since we no
longer enforce it. Less ambiguity for the model and the operators.

Test file updated:
  - Chat-style positive tests flipped to negative ("does NOT match
    User: — chat-style out of scope") so the intentional exclusion
    has a permanent regression test.
  - Two new tests cover the bounded-tail behaviour: a marker arriving
    after 10 KB of clean text in small chunks, and a marker
    straddling a chunk boundary after 100 prior chunks.
  - Added test for legitimate `User: bob@example.com`-style content
    not triggering contamination.
Test count is now 35 (up from 25); two of the new ones explicitly
exercise the new bounded-tail path.

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(role-marker-guard): drop \`^\` anchor after first chunk (review r3324060995)

Blocking correctness bug introduced by commit 4 (bounded-tail refactor):
once \`tail\` is a rolling slice of mid-stream text, \`^\` in the
canonical regex \`(?:^|\\n)\\s*##\\s+(?:user|...)\` no longer represents
the genuine message start. As the rolling window slides forward chunk
by chunk, a sliced tail can begin with whitespace + \`##\` (or just
\`##\`), letting \`^\` anchor a match against text that the
full-buffer implementation correctly ignored. With kill-on-detection
wired in commit 3, that false positive now SIGTERMs the run and emits
a \`ROLE_MARKER_HALLUCINATION\` error — exactly the failure class
called out in the docblock at L22–29.

Reviewer's evidence (PerishCode, r3324060995): streaming
"…take a look at the ## user content section…" one character at a
time reports \`contaminated: true\` post-refactor; the same text in a
single feed stays clean.

Fix: keep the canonical \`FABRICATED_ROLE_MARKER_RE\` for the very
first non-empty feed (where \`^\` legitimately points at the message
start), and switch to an internal \`NEWLINE_ANCHORED_ROLE_MARKER_RE\`
(\`\\n\\s*##\\s+(?:user|...)\` — drops the \`^\` alternative) for all
subsequent feeds. A \`firstChunk\` boolean tracks the state. Real
newline-preceded markers straddling chunk boundaries are still caught
because the preceding \`\\n\` is retained inside the 64-char tail.

Regression tests added (\`apps/daemon/tests/role-marker-guard.test.ts\`):
  - mid-line \`## user\` streamed char-by-char with no preceding \\n
    (mirrors the reviewer's repro)
  - space-preceded mid-line \`## user\` in a >130-char stream, which
    long enough to force the rolling window past the marker — exercises
    the exact slice condition that triggered the bug
  - real \\n-preceded \`## user\` still caught after a long preamble
    (positive case must not regress)
  - \`## user\` as the very first chunk still caught (\`^\` legitimately
    anchors on the first feed)

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(role-marker-guard): case-sensitive + tighter prefix scope (reviews r3324151877 / r3324151882)

Two refinements addressing the third review on #3303:

== Blocking (r3324151877) ==
The regex over-matched legitimate Markdown headings, and with
kill-on-detection wired in commit 3 each false positive
deterministically aborts a real run. Three changes tighten the match
to the actual security surface — `## user` / `## assistant` /
`## system` lines the chat host parses as turn boundaries — without
losing any real attack pattern:

1. CASE-SENSITIVE. Dropped the `/i` flag. The host's turn-boundary
   delimiter is lowercase (see `buildDaemonTranscript` in
   apps/web/src/providers/daemon.ts), and the `## CRITICAL`
   system-prompt block already forbids only the lowercase forms.
   Title-Case headings like `## User Guide`, `## System Architecture`,
   `## Assistant settings` are now ignored — these are legitimate
   technical writing patterns LLMs emit constantly. `## USER NOTES`
   (all-caps) likewise no longer flags.

2. POSITIVE LOOKAHEAD `(?=[^a-z])` after the role keyword. Without it,
   `## userland`, `## userspace`, `## users guide`, `## systemd`,
   `## assistance` all match via prefix in the alternation. The
   lookahead requires the next character to exist and to not be a
   lowercase letter, so:
     - `## user\\n…`     → match (newline is not lowercase)
     - `## assistantR…` → match (R is uppercase; the glued-form
                          attack pattern still gets caught)
     - `## assistant.`  → match (. is not a letter)
     - `## users guide` → no match (s is lowercase letter)
     - `## userland`    → no match (l is lowercase letter)
   POSITIVE rather than NEGATIVE `(?![a-z])` because the negative
   form is satisfied at end-of-string, which in a streaming context
   means "we have `## user` but don't know what comes next yet" —
   would fire prematurely if `land` arrives in a later chunk. The
   positive form delays detection by one character in that edge
   case, traded for correctness.

3. `[ \\t]` instead of `\\s` for inner whitespace. Markdown role
   markers are single-line by convention; restricting to space/tab
   prevents oddities like `##\\nuser` from matching across lines.

Test file: added Title-Case fixtures (`## User Guide`,
`## System Architecture`, `## Assistant settings`, `## USER NOTES`)
and prefix-of-longer-word fixtures (`## users guide`, `## userland`,
`## systemd`, `## assistance`) — each asserting NO contamination.
The existing `## usability` negative test gave false confidence as
the reviewer noted (only failed via alternation-miss, not via
word-boundary semantics); the new fixtures actually exercise the
lookahead. Also added a positive test for `## assistant.` (glued
punctuation) to balance the existing `## assistantReading`
(glued uppercase) coverage. Total tests: 35 → 50.

== Non-blocking (r3324151882) ==
Added `ROLE_MARKER_HALLUCINATION` to `API_ERROR_CODES` in
`packages/contracts/src/errors.ts` alongside the existing agent/AMR
codes, with a docblock comment explaining the emission contract:
emitted by `server.ts::abortForRoleMarker` alongside the existing
`fabricated_role_marker` warning event when the daemon detects a
fabricated Markdown role marker in agent output; retryable. The code
was already being emitted over the wire but unregistered — landing
the registration here keeps the contract and emitter in sync as
reviewer requested.

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(role-marker-guard): defer complete-but-unconfirmed marker suffix

Addresses review r3324277xxx — the boundary case where a stream chunk
boundary lands between the role keyword and its lookahead character
violated the documented "everything from the marker onward is silently
dropped" contract. With (?=[^a-z]) as the lookahead, `feedText('## user')`
returned `## user` as safe (no char to satisfy the lookahead → no match
→ pass through), so the fabricated marker line leaked into UI and
app.sqlite before the next chunk confirmed contamination on the next
SIGTERM cycle.

Fix: introduce a `pending` state variable holding bytes that match the
COMPLETE-but-unconfirmed marker prefix at end of buffer
(/(?:^|\\n)[ \\t]*##[ \\t]+(?:user|assistant|assist|system)$/, no
lookahead, $ anchor instead). When the no-match branch detects this
suffix, withhold it from emission until the next feed either:
  - Confirms it (next char non-lowercase) → main regex matches →
    contaminated → withheld bytes dropped along with `## user`.
  - Denies it (next char lowercase, e.g. `userl…`) → main regex no
    longer matches the role keyword → withheld suffix is released
    and emitted alongside the new continuation.

Also tied the firstChunk transition to actual byte emission rather
than feed count. Previously a message that starts with `## system`
followed by a separate `\\n` chunk would lose the `^` anchor on the
second feed (firstChunk had flipped after the first feed even though
nothing was emitted yet), silently breaking detection for that edge
case. Now `firstChunk` stays true until at least one byte has crossed
the emission boundary, matching the conceptual definition of "message
start".

Tests added (apps/daemon/tests/role-marker-guard.test.ts):
  - `## user` deferred at chunk boundary, confirmed by `\\n` in next
  - `## user` deferred at chunk boundary, denied by `land` continuation
  - `## assistant` deferred, confirmed by punctuation
  - `## User` Title-Case still passes through unconditionally
  - `## system` as the very first chunk: deferred, confirmed by \\n
    in next chunk (tests the firstChunk-stays-true-when-nothing-
    emitted invariant)

Total tests: 50 → 55.

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(claude-stream): scope role-marker guard to text_delta only, not thinking_delta

Addresses review r3324xxxxxx — guarding the thinking channel buys no
security and causes legitimate aborts.

Why thinking is NOT a #3247 vector:
  - `buildDaemonTranscript` in apps/web/src/providers/daemon.ts only
    re-serializes `m.content` as `## ${m.role}\n...`.
  - Extended-thinking content is rendered to a separate
    `kind: 'thinking'` payload (daemon.ts:857-858) and never folded
    into `m.content`.
  - So a `## user` line in the thinking channel CANNOT become a
    fabricated turn boundary on the next round-trip.

Why guarding it is harmful:
  - Models routinely emit literal `## user` / `## assistant` lines
    in chain-of-thought when reasoning about conversation structure
    ("Let me think about this. The user might phrase it as:\n## user\n
    …"). Common pattern in production traces.
  - With `abortForRoleMarker` wired in server.ts, a guard match on
    thinking SIGTERMs the run and surfaces a security error to the
    UI. The user paid for the reasoning, never sees the answer, and
    gets a confusing "fabricated role marker" warning for what was
    actually legitimate metacognition.
  - This directly contradicts the module's own stated philosophy
    ("a false positive aborts the whole run — a much more expensive
    failure than a stray unflagged ... line", role-marker-guard.ts).

Fix: `emitSafeText` now passes thinking_delta through unconditionally,
skipping both the guard and the contamination check. text_delta
remains fully guarded. The single-line change at the top of
emitSafeText preserves all other channels' behavior.

Regression tests added (apps/daemon/tests/claude-stream-thinking.test.ts):
  - `## user` / `## assistant` lines in a thinking_delta — must NOT
    fire fabricated_role_marker, the thinking content streams intact
    including the marker text, and the subsequent text_delta answer
    still reaches the consumer (run not aborted).
  - Sanity check: same `## user` pattern in a text_delta DOES fire
    fabricated_role_marker and truncates emission at the marker. Locks
    in the channel-discriminated behavior.

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(role-marker-guard): tie firstChunk to slicing, not byte emission

Blocking review r3324xxxxxx: under the prior firstChunk transition
("any byte emitted"), a role marker that arrived at the very start of
a message with its prefix split across multiple chunks bypassed
detection — reopening the #3247 vector on the Claude path.

Concrete cases that were missed (all are routine provider
tokenizations of \`## user\n…\` at message start):
  - \`##\`     | \` user\nDELETE…\`
  - \`## us\`  | \`er\nDELETE…\`
  - \`## \`    | \`user\nDELETE…\`

Mechanism: the pending-deferral regex only catches COMPLETE role
keywords, so a first chunk ending in a partial prefix (\`##\`, \`## \`,
\`## us\`) was emitted in full. That emission flipped firstChunk to
false. From that point only NEWLINE_ANCHORED_ROLE_MARKER_RE was used,
which requires a literal \n before \`##\`. A marker at buffer
position 0 has no preceding \n, so it could no longer match.
abortForRoleMarker never fired and tool_use blocks emitted after the
fabricated turn boundary reached the dispatcher.

Fix: change firstChunk to track "tail has not been sliced yet" rather
than "any byte emitted". While total emitted bytes <= TAIL_BUFFER_SIZE,
tail still represents the entire emission so far and \`^\` in the
canonical regex genuinely anchors at byte 0 of the stream — so the
\`^|\n\` alternation safely catches a chunk-split message-start
marker. The transition happens at the moment we would slice: once
emitted > TAIL_BUFFER_SIZE, tail becomes a mid-stream window, \`^\`
becomes meaningless, and we switch to the newline-only variants.

Earlier iterations of this code tried two other definitions, both
unsound:
  - "any byte emitted" (this commit fixes) — lost \`^\` before a
    chunk-split message-start marker could finish arriving.
  - "newline emitted" (briefly considered as the reviewer's
    alternative suggestion) — left \`^\` valid on a sliced buffer
    when streams hadn't emitted a newline yet, re-introducing the
    rolling-tail mid-stream false positive from review r3324060995.
The slice-based invariant satisfies both: while we have not sliced,
\`^\` is correct; once we slice, it is not.

Regression tests added (apps/daemon/tests/role-marker-guard.test.ts):
  - \`##\`    | \` user\nDELETE…\`   → contaminated, marker=\`## user\`
  - \`## us\` | \`er\nDELETE…\`      → contaminated, marker=\`## user\`
  - \`## \`   | \`user\nDELETE…\`    → contaminated, marker=\`## user\`
  - \`#\`     | \`# user\nDELETE…\`  → contaminated, marker=\`## user\`
The fourth case (single \`#\` first chunk) exercises an even more
adversarial tokenization than the reviewer's examples; it is also
caught.

Total tests: 55 → 59.

Co-Authored-By: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>

* fix(tests): wrap events in stream_event envelope in thinking test

feedJsonl was feeding raw events without the `{ type: 'stream_event',
event: ... }` wrapper that createClaudeStreamHandler requires (line 141
of claude-stream.ts). Events silently fell through all branches, making
both tests pass vacuously. Also fix TS2532 on warnings[0].marker with
non-null assertion (safe after the toHaveLength(1) guard).

Co-Authored-By: RoverKai <roverkai@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: roverkai <2196140098@qq.com>
Co-authored-by: JasonBroderick <jason@buddyboss.com>
Co-authored-by: RoverKai <roverkai@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-05-30 03:57:56 +00:00
..
src fix(#3247): Detect, terminate, and warn on fabricated role markers across all agent paths (#3303) 2026-05-30 03:57:56 +00:00
tests feat(mcp): generation loop + one-click Codex install (#3141) 2026-05-28 11:29:11 +00:00
esbuild.config.mjs feat(web): "Resume conversation in new chat" UI — #462 Commit B (companion to #1718) (#2264) 2026-05-20 13:28:27 +08:00
package.json feat(runtimes): register AMR (vela) as an ACP stdio agent (#2355) 2026-05-28 05:09:55 +00:00
tsconfig.json Add shared contracts and migrate project code to TypeScript (#118) 2026-04-30 13:01:15 +08:00
tsconfig.tests.json chore: enforce test directory conventions (#496) 2026-05-05 15:34:22 +08:00