Maintainer-only PySide6 tool: semantic per-entry diff of data/catalog.json,
blocking risk predicates (non-empty env values, command allowlist, non-ASCII
homoglyphs, unpinned packages, URL domain changes), automatic off-thread
registry lookups (publisher/age/downloads/near-neighbour), acknowledge-gated
signing with a pinned git blob SHA (refuses to sign bytes that changed since
review), and payload+signature emitted in a single commit.
Never shipped to users — excluded from bcc.spec, with a test asserting it.
Review feedback: making the registry lookup an on-demand 'Check registry'
button was a deviation from the design intent, not a style choice. The
registry lookup is the one check a human reviewer genuinely cannot do by
eye -- it's what caught firecrawl-mcp's unrelated npm publisher in the
seed data. Gating it behind a button makes it optional, and an optional
check is the one a tired maintainer skips at 11pm -- exactly the failure
mode this tool exists to defend against. The friction belongs on
approval, never on information.
EntryCard now kicks off its registry lookup automatically at construction
time (i.e. as soon as _render_cards() builds the cards for a loaded
review), one RegistryLookupWorker (QThread) per changed entry, all
starting concurrently as the cards are built. Nothing about the lookup's
pure logic changed -- catalog_review.lookup_registry_info was already
fail-soft (RegistryInfo(available=False) on any fetch problem, never an
exception) and can_sign() never depended on registry state, so a dead
registry still cannot gate review or signing.
Renamed the button 'Check registry' -> 'Re-check' and kept it wired to
the same _run_registry_lookup(), for manually retrying a failed/unavailable
lookup. Label copy now reads loading... while a lookup is in flight (was
'not checked yet.' / 'checking...'), matching the loading -> result |
unavailable per-entry states.
No change to acknowledge-gating or the TOCTOU blob-SHA pin in
catalog_review.py. ruff check/format clean; full suite still 321 passed,
1 pre-existing unrelated skip -- catalog_review.py (the tested pure-logic
module) is untouched, only catalog_console.py's GUI wiring moved from
button-triggered to auto-triggered.
Adds a separate PySide6 tool (catalog_console.py) that reviews proposed
changes to data/catalog.json and signs the approved result. Never shipped
to users, never in the release bundle -- maintainer runs it from source.
Pure, GUI-free logic lives in a new catalog_review.py (kept out of both
the GUI and bcc_core.py to avoid merge conflicts on the latter):
- diff_catalogs(old, new) -> list[EntryChange]: semantic (per-entry)
diff, not a text diff, with per-field before/after values.
- Six independent risk predicates, each unit-tested: non-empty
env_required value, command outside bcc_core.CATALOG_ALLOWED_COMMANDS
(imported, not redefined), non-ASCII code points in id/command/args
(rendered with escapes -- homoglyph/RTL-override defence), unpinned
npm/docker package references, URL domain changes (lookalike-domain
swap defence), brand-new entries flagged for extra scrutiny.
- ReviewSession + can_sign(): the Sign button stays disabled until every
changed entry is individually acknowledged -- no "acknowledge all"
shortcut exists, and a comment in the code says never to add one.
- TOCTOU fix (adversarial review on #62): the git blob SHA of
data/catalog.json is pinned when review begins; can_sign() refuses to
sign if the current blob differs, forcing a re-review. The Console
re-fetches the blob SHA immediately before signing and enforces this.
- catalog_signing_message() imports bcc_core's domain-separation prefix
(_CATALOG_SIG_DOMAIN) rather than retyping it, so the Console's
signatures and bcc_core.verify_catalog_signature can't drift apart --
proven by a round-trip test (sign here, verify via bcc_core).
- encrypt_private_key/decrypt_private_key: the signing key is never
stored plaintext (scrypt + AES-256-GCM at rest, OS keychain via the
optional keyring package if available, else an encrypted file under
$HOME outside the repo).
- Registry lookup (lookup_registry_info + injected Fetcher): the network
call is kept out of this module for offline testability;
catalog_console.py supplies npm/PyPI HTTP fetchers. Fails soft --
network down means "unavailable", never a block on review.
near_neighbor_ids() flags edit-distance <=2 typosquat candidates
against existing catalog ids.
catalog_console.py wires the above into a Qt GUI: Load (open PRs
touching data/catalog.json via the Gitea REST API, or main) -> Review
(one EntryCard per changed entry, command/args rendered visually
dominant, risk findings colour-coded, per-card registry-lookup button
running off the UI thread like bcc.py's ConnTester/SpawnTester) -> Sign
(re-checks the pinned blob SHA, prompts for the key passphrase, writes
data/catalog.json + data/catalog.json.sig and commits+pushes BOTH in a
single commit -- so main is never red between a catalog merge and its
signature). Every attacker-controlled string renders through a
plain_label() helper that both escapes HTML and forces Qt.PlainText, so
a script/image payload in a description/notes/URL can't render as
markup. Also provides keygen (generates + stores an encrypted keypair,
prints the base64 public key) and show-seed-b64 (prints the base64
private seed for the RELEASE_SIGNING_KEY CI secret) CLI subcommands.
Excluded from the release bundle: bcc.spec's Analysis() only ever starts
from bcc.py, and tests/test_catalog_console_packaging.py asserts neither
new file is named anywhere in bcc.spec and that bcc.py never imports
either module.
Tests: 67 new (62 in test_catalog_review.py, 5 in
test_catalog_console_packaging.py) covering diff_catalogs, every risk
predicate individually, the acknowledge-gating + TOCTOU can_sign()
logic, the sign/verify round-trip against bcc_core, key encryption
(including wrong-passphrase and corrupted-blob rejection),
edit-distance/near-neighbour matching, and registry-lookup fail-soft
behaviour. Full suite: 321 passed, 1 pre-existing unrelated skip. ruff
check and ruff format --check both clean. catalog_console.py (Qt/GUI)
could not be executed in the sandbox this was developed in (no system
EGL/GL libraries available for PySide6) -- it was syntax-checked
(py_compile) and lint/format-checked but not smoke-tested; see PR body
for what AJ should verify.
Closes#62
Publish SHA-256 checksums for every release artifact and sign them with a
domain-separated Ed25519 signature. Skips signing (loudly) if the key secret
is absent rather than failing the release. README documents verification and
states the limit plainly: this proves the file is the one we published; it
does not remove Gatekeeper/SmartScreen warnings.
- Pin every basic-tier entry to an exact published version (npm @x.y.z,
uvx @x.y.z, docker :tag). Unpinned npx -y <pkg> means a package
compromised AFTER we ship auto-upgrades into every user; a pin bounds
supply-chain compromise to versions we actually reviewed.
- Drop firecrawl from the seed (19 entries). npm publish rights are held
solely by hello_sideguide/sideguide.dev, which has no visible
relationship to firecrawl.dev, while the package is presented as
official. Publisher identity we cannot tie to the vendor is exactly
what this catalog must not execute on a user's machine. Retained in the
research pool pending confirmation.
- postgres: ship --access-mode=restricted, not unrestricted. A curated
catalog must not default to handing an LLM write access to your DB.
- Add last_release (ISO date, from the live registry) so the UI can show
freshness; postgres-mcp and mcp-obsidian are both ~14mo stale.
Phase 1 of the MCP server catalog: pure, GUI-free core functions plus the
seed data/catalog.json (20 servers). No GUI wiring in this PR -- bcc.py is
untouched; a follow-up PR adds the picker dialog.
- load_catalog(): strict json.loads ONLY. The lenient repair pipeline
(repair_json_text / parse_pasted_json*) is never used on catalog bytes,
by design and by comment, so a signature always authenticates exactly
what gets parsed.
- validate_catalog(): rejects the whole file (not per-entry) on: bad
schema/version types, missing tier-appropriate fields (basic needs
config.command+args, link-only needs docs_url and no config), a
command allowlist (npx/uvx/docker/node/python/python3 only), -e/--eval/-c
denial for node/python, --privileged and root/$HOME volume-mount denial
for docker, non-empty env_required values (hard rejection -- secrets
never ship in the catalog), secret-looking args (reuses
_TOKEN_PREFIXES/_is_secret_value rather than reimplementing), non-https
URL fields, and non-ASCII code points in id/command/args (homoglyph
defence).
- verify_catalog_signature(): Ed25519 via the cryptography package,
domain-separated message (the literal prefix "bcc-catalog-v1|" + raw
bytes), accepts a match against any key in CATALOG_PUBKEYS
(rotation-ready), never raises.
- resolve_catalog(): picks the highest version among bundled/cached/remote
candidates that EACH independently pass verify + validate -- the bundled
catalog gets no implicit trust, closing the hole where an unsigned
payload merged to main would win on being local. Anti-rollback (never
regress below the best verified candidate already in hand) and
anti-freeze (reject a jump of more than 1000 versions) built in.
- catalog_entry_to_paste_json() / config_has_unfilled_placeholders(): small
pure helpers the future GUI dialog will use to feed a catalog pick into
the existing paste-import path and to gate Save on unfilled placeholder
tokens.
data/catalog.json: the provided 20-server seed, with a signed_at field
added at the top level (lives inside the signed payload once real signing
lands in #62). Wired into bcc.spec's PyInstaller datas so it bundles into
the frozen app.
Security requirements from the issue, and where they landed:
- Catalog bytes never touch the lenient JSON repair path -- enforced by
load_catalog()'s strict json.loads and a comment warning against wiring
it in later.
- env_required values are a hard rejection when non-empty, not a warning.
- Secret-looking args are rejected at validation time, reusing the
existing secret-detection helpers instead of duplicating them.
- Non-ASCII id/command/args rejected (typosquat/homoglyph defence).
- URL fields restricted to https://.
- Ed25519 signature verification is domain-separated and never raises.
- The bundled catalog is verified at runtime exactly like remote/cached --
no implicit trust for being local.
- Anti-rollback and anti-freeze bounds on resolve_catalog's version
comparison.
Tests: 42 new tests added to tests/test_core.py (full suite: 239 passed,
1 pre-existing unrelated skip). ruff check and ruff format --check both
clean.
Publish SHA256SUMS for every release archive and sign it with a
detached Ed25519 signature (SHA256SUMS.sig), since paid code signing
(macOS Developer ID, Windows Authenticode) and Sigstore keyless (needs
a Fulcio-trusted OIDC issuer; self-hosted Gitea isn't one) are both
out of budget/scope.
- scripts/sign_checksums.py: dependency-light (cryptography only)
helper to hash a directory of files into a sha256sum(1)-compatible
SHA256SUMS manifest, sign it (domain-separated: b"bcc-release-v1|"
+ raw manifest bytes), and verify a signature. CLI has generate/
sign/verify subcommands; verify doubles as the check path.
- tests/test_checksums.py: 15 unit + CLI-subprocess tests covering
hashing, manifest formatting, sign/verify roundtrip, tamper
detection, wrong-key rejection, domain-separation, and the
no-key-provided failure path (must error, never write an empty/
bogus .sig).
- .github/workflows/release.yml: Publish Release job now checks out
the repo, flattens build artifacts, generates SHA256SUMS, and signs
it from the RELEASE_SIGNING_KEY secret (base64 raw Ed25519 seed) if
present. If the secret is absent, the release still publishes with
a loud ::warning:: and no .sig — it never fails the release or
publishes a bogus signature.
- README.md: new 'Verifying your download' section with the (still
placeholder) public key, sha256sum -c / Get-FileHash commands, and
an explicit statement that this does not remove Gatekeeper/
SmartScreen warnings.
- requirements-dev.txt / ci.yml: add cryptography as a dev/test
dependency for the new script and its tests.
Touches no files from bcc_core.py / tests/test_core.py /
pyproject.toml / bcc.spec to avoid colliding with concurrent work on
those files.
Sets live in the config under _bccServerSets (bcc-owned, ignored by
Claude, travels with the file). Apply enables exactly the set's members
and parks the rest; vanished members are reported, not fatal. GUI row:
set combo + Apply + Save set… + delete.
Closes#52
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
First release actually shipping the v1.2.0 feature set (the v1.2.0
tag's release run was cancelled and produced no assets) plus the
audit fixes #32-#40 and the Windows process-tree kill (#13).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Popen.kill() only terminated the direct child, so runner-style commands
(npx -> node -> server) leaked the real server process on every Windows
spawn test. taskkill /PID <pid> /T /F walks the descendant tree. Also
sets CREATE_NO_WINDOW on the spawned test process so the windowed exe
doesn't flash a console per test.
Closes#13
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
python3 is not a command on a stock Windows install; caught by the new
windows-latest CI job. Probe 'python' there and accept warn (found on
augmented PATH) as proof of resolution.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The status bar is rewritten on every action, so the appended MSIX
warning vanished on first interaction. A dedicated warn banner under
the top bar stays visible.
Closes#35
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The self-hosted Windows runner's PowerShell execution policy rejects
setup-python's install script, so Windows mirrors release.yml: py -3.12
+ venv (the version the release binaries ship with). Linux keeps the
full 3.10/3.12/3.13 setup-python matrix.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
- Linux (and any non-desktop platform): refuse instead of 'pkill claude',
which substring-matched running Claude Code CLI sessions and relaunched
the CLI, not a desktop app. New restart_supported() gates the button.
- macOS: wait (<=5s) for the old instance to exit before 'open -a Claude'
so the relaunch can't re-activate the dying process. Runs off the UI
thread via a RestartWorker.
- Windows: verify the Start-menu shortcut exists BEFORE taskkill, so an
MSIX/Store install is never killed without a relaunch path.
Closes#33
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Closing the About dialog mid-check GC'd the dialog and the running
QThread with it -> 'QThread: Destroyed while thread is still running'.
A class-level keepalive set now holds each worker until finished;
stale results to a destroyed receiver are dropped by Qt.
Closes#32
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
the_og
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