feat: allow file reads outside IDE workspace (w/ permission) #8298

Patrick-Erichsen · 2025-10-16T22:56:54Z

closes CON-4324 CON-3616 CON-4465

Summary by cubic

Allow reading and listing files outside the IDE workspace with explicit permission. Adds robust path resolution for absolute, tilde (~/), and file:// paths, and enforces stricter access policies for non-workspace paths.

New Features
- Added pathResolver to normalize user-provided paths and detect workspace boundaries; supports relative, absolute, tilde, and file:// URIs (with tests).
- Introduced evaluateFileAccessPolicy: files outside the workspace always require permission; integrated via preprocessArgs + evaluateToolCallPolicy for ls, readFile, readFileRange, and viewSubdirectory.
- Core now supports tool arg preprocessing and passes processed args to policy evaluation; terminal command display uses processed args.
- Updated tool implementations to use resolveInputPath with clearer errors and consistent display paths; added a CLI path resolver for local runs.

core/core.ts

- Combined resolveInputPath approach with new ContinueError system - Updated error handling to use ContinueError with appropriate error reasons - Maintained improved error messages from pe/read-file-errs branch

cubic-dev-ai

5 issues found across 13 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 5 issues)


Understand the root cause of the following 5 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.ts:11">
resolveInputPath returns a truthy result even when the absolute directory does not exist, so this branch no longer throws DirectoryNotFound and generateRepoMap later fails while walking the missing path.</violation>
</file>

<file name="extensions/cli/src/util/pathResolver.ts">

<violation number="1" location="extensions/cli/src/util/pathResolver.ts:15">
Home-relative paths that use &quot;~\&quot; (common on Windows shells) are not expanded, so resolveInputPath incorrectly rejects valid Windows home paths.</violation>
</file>

<file name="core/util/pathResolver.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.ts:26">
Workspace containment currently matches on raw prefix, so paths such as `/workspace-other/file` are incorrectly classified as inside `/workspace`, which can bypass the outside-workspace permission gate. Please ensure the comparison enforces real directory boundaries.</violation>
</file>

<file name="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts:80">
The expected URI is constructed with path.join, which yields backslashes and omits the third slash on Windows, so this assertion fails on Windows even though resolveInputPath returns the correct normalized URI.</violation>

<violation number="2" location="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts:201">
This assertion hardcodes a POSIX path; on Windows normalizeDisplayPath yields `~\Documents\file.txt`, so the test fails despite the implementation being correct on that platform.</violation>
</file>

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core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.ts

extensions/cli/src/util/pathResolver.ts

core/util/pathResolver.ts

core/util/pathResolver.test.ts

gui/src/redux/thunks/evaluateToolPolicies.ts

core/tools/definitions/readFileRange.ts

core/tools/definitions/readFile.ts

core/util/pathResolver.ts

cubic-dev-ai

Reviewed changes from recent commits (found 1 issue).

1 issue found across 5 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 1 issues)


Understand the root cause of the following 1 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts:38">
The new findUriInDirs mock treats file:///workspace-subdir/... as within the workspace because it only checks uri.startsWith(dir). Please ensure the mock only matches when the URI actually sits under the workspace path, mirroring the real helper.</violation>
</file>

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core/util/pathResolver.test.ts

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 4 files

Co-authored-by: cubic-dev-ai[bot] <191113872+cubic-dev-ai[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>

cubic-dev-ai

Reviewed changes from recent commits (found 1 issue).

1 issue found across 3 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 1 issues)


Understand the root cause of the following 1 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts:7">
The mocked extras.ide object is missing getWorkspaceDirs, so resolveInputPath throws a TypeError before viewSubdirectoryImpl can raise ContinueError, causing the test to fail.</violation>
</file>

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core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 1 file

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 2 files

gui/src/redux/thunks/evaluateToolPolicies.ts

core/util/pathResolver.ts

RomneyDa · 2025-10-17T19:51:01Z

core/util/pathResolver.ts

+
+  // Expand tilde paths
+  let expandedPath = trimmedPath;
+  if (trimmedPath.startsWith("~/")) {


noting no tilde support for windows, probably fine since tilde is usually unix, but e.g. ~\this\that would be missed here

i dont think that is a valid windows path

Windows doesn't interpret ~ as the home directory like Unix/Linux systems do. Valid Windows paths typically start with: - A drive letter: C:\this\that - A UNC path: \\server\share\this\that - A relative path: this\that or .\this\that To reference the user's home directory in Windows, you'd use environment variables like %USERPROFILE%\this\that or %HOMEPATH%\this\that.

RomneyDa · 2025-10-17T19:52:32Z

core/util/pathResolver.ts

+
+  if (isAbsolute) {
+    // For Windows network paths, handle specially
+    if (expandedPath.startsWith("\\\\")) {


this check is duplicate, can move windows network path handling outside/above other absolute paths

RomneyDa · 2025-10-17T19:54:31Z

core/util/pathResolver.ts

+    // For Windows network paths, handle specially
+    if (expandedPath.startsWith("\\\\")) {
+      const networkPath = expandedPath.replace(/\\/g, "/");
+      const uri = "file:" + networkPath; // file://server/share format


note networkPath is not normalized to URI path style, probably fine but could add URI.normalize here

core/util/pathResolver.ts

extensions/cli/src/util/pathResolver.ts

Patrick-Erichsen · 2025-10-17T21:30:15Z

After pulling in untildify and normalize-path

cubic-dev-ai

Reviewed changes from recent commits (found 2 issues).

2 issues found across 5 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 2 issues)


Understand the root cause of the following 2 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts:9">
This test no longer covers the resolveInputPath-null scenario because the mocked extras cause fileExists to trigger the failure instead, so it will not detect regressions in that branch.</violation>
</file>

<file name="core/util/pathResolver.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.ts:59">
UNC file paths are no longer converted correctly: pathToFileURL on POSIX hosts turns \\server\share paths into URIs like file:///mnt/workspace/%5Cserversharedir, breaking access to network shares.</violation>
</file>

_{React with 👍 or 👎 to teach cubic. Mention @cubic-dev-ai to give feedback, ask questions, or re-run the review.}

core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts

core/util/pathResolver.ts

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 3 files

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 9 files

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 1 file

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 1 file

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 1 file

cubic-dev-ai

No issues found across 3 files

Patrick-Erichsen · 2025-10-20T17:08:02Z

Note that I added a .skip to DocsCrawler.test.ts - it flaked 3+ times on me and this feature is deprecated so I think we should just skip the test rather than try to resolve the flake.

RomneyDa

looks good to me (LGTM)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=LGTM

add tool call policy evaluation

4903f3a

github-project-automation bot added this to Issues and PRs Oct 16, 2025

github-project-automation bot moved this to Todo in Issues and PRs Oct 16, 2025

Patrick-Erichsen marked this pull request as ready for review October 16, 2025 22:57

Patrick-Erichsen requested a review from a team as a code owner October 16, 2025 22:57

Patrick-Erichsen requested review from tingwai and removed request for a team October 16, 2025 22:57

dosubot bot added the size:XL This PR changes 500-999 lines, ignoring generated files. label Oct 16, 2025

Patrick-Erichsen commented Oct 16, 2025

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Patrick-Erichsen requested review from RomneyDa and removed request for tingwai October 16, 2025 22:58

Patrick-Erichsen added 2 commits October 16, 2025 16:00

Merge main branch and resolve conflicts

ad2fd48

- Combined resolveInputPath approach with new ContinueError system - Updated error handling to use ContinueError with appropriate error reasons - Maintained improved error messages from pe/read-file-errs branch

fix: pass preprocessed args to core

bf9a19a

cubic-dev-ai bot reviewed Oct 16, 2025

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continue bot mentioned this pull request Oct 17, 2025

docs: add documentation for file access outside workspace #8300

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RomneyDa reviewed Oct 17, 2025

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