Security: Prevent ANSI injection attacks in user-facing output

[Copilot]

User-controlled input (spec names, paths, tags, assignees) flows through chalk formatting without sanitization, enabling ANSI injection attacks that can manipulate terminal behavior, hide output, or inject malicious control sequences.

Changes

Security Module

• src/utils/safe-output.ts: Centralized sanitization using strip-ansi to remove ANSI codes and control characters while preserving unicode/emojis
• src/safe-output.test.ts: 42 tests covering injection vectors (CSI sequences, OSC commands, cursor control, bell spam, hyperlink injection)

Command Migration

Sanitize user input before display in 8 commands:

• create.ts, archive.ts, update.ts: spec paths
• board.ts: spec paths, tags, assignees
• search.ts: queries, results, metadata
• files.ts: spec/file names
• deps.ts: dependency paths
• check.ts: conflict paths

Example

// Before: vulnerable to injection
console.log(chalk.green(`✓ Created: ${specDir}/`));

// After: sanitized
console.log(chalk.green(`✓ Created: ${sanitizeUserInput(specDir)}/`));

Attack example prevented:

lspec create $'\x1b[31mFAKE ERROR\x1b[0m'
# Before: displays red "FAKE ERROR" 
# After: displays "FAKE ERROR" without color codes

Dependencies

• Added [email protected] (no known vulnerabilities)

Original prompt

let's implement console-log-chalk-security

Created from VS Code via the GitHub Pull Request extension.

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Project	Deployment	Preview	Comments	Updated (UTC)
lean-spec	Ready	Preview	Comment	Nov 3, 2025 3:03pm

[Copilot]

Pull Request Overview

This PR implements security hardening to prevent ANSI injection attacks by sanitizing user-controlled input before displaying it in the terminal. The changes introduce a centralized sanitization utility and apply it consistently across all commands that display user-provided content.

• Adds sanitizeUserInput() function to strip ANSI escape sequences and control characters from user input
• Wraps all user-controlled output (spec names, paths, tags, assignees, queries) with sanitization
• Provides comprehensive test coverage for various injection attack vectors

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 13 out of 14 changed files in this pull request and generated 2 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
src/utils/safe-output.ts	New security module with sanitization utilities and safe output functions
src/safe-output.test.ts	Comprehensive tests for sanitization and safe output functions (327 lines, 42 test cases)
src/utils/ui.ts	Re-exports sanitizeUserInput and adds documentation notes about pre-sanitization
src/commands/update.ts	Sanitizes spec paths in error and success messages
src/commands/search.ts	Sanitizes query strings, filter options, and search result metadata
src/commands/files.ts	Sanitizes spec names and file names in directory listings
src/commands/deps.ts	Sanitizes dependency paths in dependency tree output
src/commands/create.ts	Sanitizes spec directory and file paths in creation messages
src/commands/check.ts	Sanitizes conflicting spec paths in validation output
src/commands/board.ts	Sanitizes spec paths, assignees, and tags in board view
src/commands/archive.ts	Sanitizes spec paths in archive operations
package.json	Adds strip-ansi@^7.1.2 dependency
pnpm-lock.yaml	Lock file update for new dependency
specs/.../README.md	Updates spec status to complete

Files not reviewed (1)

• pnpm-lock.yaml: Language not supported

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[Copilot]

Calling .padEnd(20) on the sanitized filename can cause misalignment when the filename contains multi-byte unicode characters or emojis. The sanitization preserves unicode/emojis but .padEnd() counts by string length, not visual width. Consider sanitizing after padding or using a display-width-aware padding function.

[Copilot]

Calling .padEnd(20) on the sanitized filename can cause misalignment when the filename contains multi-byte unicode characters or emojis. The sanitization preserves unicode/emojis but .padEnd() counts by string length, not visual width. Consider sanitizing after padding or using a display-width-aware padding function.