Security

Report a vulnerability

Do not open a public issue or pull request for a security problem. Report it privately through GitHub:

1. Open the private vulnerability report form for the BasaltDB repository. This is GitHub private vulnerability reporting. Only the maintainers can see what you send.
2. Say what is affected (the engine, the guard, the CLI, a portal page) and the commit or version.
3. Add steps or a proof of concept, and what an attacker gains.

Never put a real credential or someone else’s data in a report. Use a throwaway database.

The full policy is in SECURITY.md in the engine repository. It lists what is in scope and what to expect. The maintainers are a small team. They aim to acknowledge a report within 5 business days and give a first assessment within 14 days. These are targets, not guarantees.

What BasaltDB protects against

The engine is the first filter and your database is the boundary. The guard is the basalt_meta schema inside your Postgres, with roles and triggers. It protects against an agent that makes a mistake, or is talked into one.

• The agent holds no database password. The engine holds a scoped credential for that agent and runs as its own OS user.
• The agent’s role cannot change tables. It has table grants only. It cannot drop, alter or create anything, and the guard refuses more than 50 rows in one action.
• Every write carries a reason. Postgres refuses a write without one, even over a direct connection with the agent’s credential. Old and new rows are saved in the same transaction. If the guard cannot record a write, the write fails.
• An agent cannot approve its own change or undo. An approval needs your passkey. Postgres checks the signature, so whatever carries it cannot forge one.
• Old values are kept for 30 days. An undo restores them, and leaves alone any row changed since.

What it does not protect against

• An agent with your admin credential, your own credential or sudo on the engine’s machine.
• A change that is valid, small and wrong. It is recorded and can be undone.
• Data an agent already read and passed on, for example through prompt injection.
• Actions outside the database, such as an email sent or a payment made on bad data.

See What BasaltDB won’t catch for each one and what helps, and Architecture for how the pieces fit.

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