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roboco/docs/rag/architecture/http-security-guard.md
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fc41dfa40e fix(security): active guard enforcement, CEO A2A target check, notification expiry (#595)
* fix(security): guard goes active; CEO A2A respects no-comms roles; ack notifications expire

ROBOCO_GUARD_PASSIVE_MODE defaults to false in both compose files — the
deferred post-calibration flip; fail_secure stays off and the env override
remains the rollback. can_a2a_direct no longer short-circuits the CEO past
the no-comms set (auditor/pr_reviewer/prompter/secretary), now canonical
in foundation.policy.communications.NO_COMMS_ROLES and shared with the
content-actions gate; the A2A service refuses at conversation creation
instead of silently suppressing the wake. Ack-required notifications get
expires_at stamped from ROBOCO_NOTIFICATION_ACK_TTL_HOURS (default 48,
0 disables), so the re-escalation sweeper's expires_at query matches rows
for the first time.

* refactor(notification): extract _ack_and_expiry — xenon rank back under B

The expires_at stamping pushed _create_notification_with_session to
rank C; the requires_ack + expiry derivation moves into a helper with
the same semantics and comments.

* test(conftest): dispose the global DB engine after every test

Production code reaching get_db_context()/get_engine() lazily creates the
process-global engine bound to the current event loop; with per-test
function-scoped loops, any later test touching the global path inherits a
dead-loop engine and dies with 'Future attached to a different loop' —
the order-dependent class that has been wandering the suite (cloud_auth
login, metrics, tasks-routes, full-lifecycle) whenever collection order
shifts. An autouse fixture now close_db()s after every test, keeping the
global path loop-local; no-op when untouched.

---------

Co-authored-by: Renn F <rennf93@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-07-19 18:46:44 +02:00

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Markdown

# HTTP Security Guard
## What It Is
RoboCo's HTTP request layer is protected by `fastapi-guard` (v7.2.1), implemented in `roboco/security.py` and wired into the app in `roboco/api/app.py`'s `create_app`.
## Enable/Disable
| Variable | Default | Effect |
|----------|---------|--------|
| `ROBOCO_GUARD_ENABLED` | `false` | Master switch. Off = completely inert — no middleware is mounted, the request path is entirely unchanged, and nothing is logged or blocked. |
| `ROBOCO_GUARD_PASSIVE_MODE` | see below | When the guard is enabled, controls whether it blocks matching requests or only logs them. |
As of 2026-07-19 the guard is gated off by default in config, but the NAS build compose arms it ON in ACTIVE enforcement (`ROBOCO_GUARD_PASSIVE_MODE=false`) — passive/log-only calibration came back clean, and the CEO approved the flip now that cloud auth + Tailscale are armed. A matching request on that deploy is actually blocked, not just logged. The registry compose still ships it fully off (see Enforcement Posture below).
## When Armed
With `ROBOCO_GUARD_ENABLED=true`, a `SecurityMiddleware` sits outermost in the middleware stack, and per-route decorators add rate limits, request-size caps, content-type filters, a signature-based WAF (detects SQL injection, XSS, path traversal, and suspicious URL patterns), security response headers, cloud-provider/honeypot checks, and an emergency lockdown switch.
On top of those generic checks, three RoboCo-specific custom validators run against request bodies:
| Validator | Blocks |
|-----------|--------|
| Prompt-injection detection | Bodies attempting to inject instructions |
| Secret-exfil detection | Bodies carrying literal credential-shaped strings (e.g. `sk-ant-...`, `ghp_...`, postgres connection URLs) or phrasing like "reveal your api keys" |
| Internal-SSRF detection | Fetch-type bodies targeting internal/metadata hosts (e.g. `169.254.169.254`, `roboco-*` internal service hostnames) |
## Enforcement Posture
`ROBOCO_GUARD_PASSIVE_MODE` decides what happens on a match: `true` (passive) detects and logs only, and never blocks a request. `false` (enforce) actually blocks the matching request — this is how the NAS build compose is armed today (its default flipped from `true` to `false` once passive-mode calibration reviewed clean). The registry compose omits the guard trio entirely, leaving a fresh third-party deploy on the safe config default (guard off).
A blocked request gets a generic `400` or `403` response — no rule or signature detail is returned, so the response body can't be used to fingerprint what tripped the guard.
## WAF Calibration for Agent Traffic
Agent traffic legitimately carries code, SQL, diffs, file paths, HTML snippets, and URLs — for example inside `note` / `commit` / `dm` bodies. To avoid false positives, the free-text body fields on those routes are excluded from WAF signature scanning via `excluded_detection_body_fields` in `build_security_config`, so normal code/SQL/diff/HTML payloads from agents are not flagged by the WAF layer.
The three custom validators above are not covered by that exclusion — they scan those same bodies regardless of the WAF exclusion. See `docs/rag/troubleshooting/blocked-http-requests.md` for what this means in practice and what not to put in a request body.
## Scanner Auto-Ban
A separate layer targets automated scanners (not agents — agents run on Docker-internal IPs). Repeated probes to scanner fingerprints on `/api` paths (`recon`/`sensitive_file`/`cms_probing` categories) trip a per-IP auto-ban in active mode, and nginx drops the classic root scanner paths (`/.env`, `/wp-login.php`, `/.git/config`, …) at the edge with `444`. This does not affect legitimate agent traffic to the gateway verbs.