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RFC: audit assertions #422

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64 changes: 64 additions & 0 deletions accepted/9999-npm-audit-assertions.md
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# `npm audit` assertions

## Summary

A mechanism for module maintainers to assert that their modules are not impacted by advisories.

```
npm audit assert --module=<module-name> --id=<advisory identifier> --impactful=<boolean>
```

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## Motivation

It's relatively common that `npm audit` creates a painful experience for maintainers of transitive dependencies and for end-users, with a seemingly high likelihood to have a disproportionately large negative impact on beginners who don't actually know what's happening.

Further, the amount of noise that `npm audit` generates from transitive dependencies that rely on a "vulnerable" module where there is no world in which the "vulnerability" can be exploited leads to people ignoring `npm audit` rather than leveraging it to actually address vulnerabilities.

Enabling maintainers of dependencies - most importantly, dependencies that are most often transitive - to assert that their dependencies are not impacted by known vulnerabilities is a way to dramatically reduce the amount of pain that `npm audit` creates.

Further, this creates an additional cascading signal of _validity_ when the maintainers of a transitive dependency mark the advisory as impactful. As maintainers make assertions, we get more context about the impact of advisories across the ecosytem, which - if surfaced to end-users through `npm audit` - helps provide more context to make an informted decision about how to address advisories that they're seeing.

## Detailed Explanation

- `npm audit assert` will be added with the following arguments:
- `--module=<module-name>` where `<module-name>` is the name of the module having an assertion made. If I was a maintainer of `fastify` and wanted to make an assertion about it, I'd use `--module=fastify`.
- `--id=<advisory identifier>` is the identifier of the advisory that impacts my module that I'm making an assertion about. As a hypothetical maintainer of `fastify` wanting to make to make an assertion about the npm advisory `1726`, I'd use `--id=1726`. This also potentially allows for future expansion into other identifiers. For example, if I wanted to make an assertion about `CVE-2021-28562` advisory, I'd use `--id=CVE-2021-28562`. I'd love to see namespacing, like `npm-1726`, but I could understand why people might be against that.
- `--impactful=<boolean>` this should just be `true` or `false`. If it's `true`, then an assertion is made that the advisory is impactful to the module passed to `--module`. If it's `false`, then an assertion is made that the advisory is not impactful to the module passed to `--module`.
- `npm audit` will need to be updated to both consume additional data and provide additional filters.
- by default, `npm audit` should
- surface advisories that have no assertions or `--impactful=true` assertions
- ignore advisories that have `--impactful=false` assertions, **presuming** there are no alternative paths to the advisories that have no assertions or `--impactful=true` assertions
- the `--assertions` flag should be added
- it should take the following values:
- `only`: only show the advisories that have have assertions, `true` or `false`
- `only-true`: only show the advisories that have `--impactful=true` assertions
- `only-false`: only show the advisories that have `--impactful=false` assertions
- `unfiltered`: show all the advisories, regardless of whether they have assertions, `true` or `false`
- these should probably be sent to the server to be filtered server-side and enable smaller responses.
- the UI should also display if an assertion has been made, and what that assertion is.
- `--json` should include assertions, if any exist.
- The addition of `npm audit assert` will require some kind of change to the server that serves the information that powers `npm audit`. Specifically, this information will need to be accepted when `npm audit assert` is run, and returned with `npm audit` information. Additionally, depending on how this is implemented, this might reduce the number of requests made and data returned to end-users. Specifically, if the CLI assumes by default that users want to ignore vulnerabilities that have been marked as `--impactful=false` by transitive (or direct) dependencies **and** that is sent to the server, the server can return only what's needed rather than the full set of data.

## Rationale and Alternatives

- Do nothing: The current state of the world that has caused [pain](https://overreacted.io/npm-audit-broken-by-design/).
- Allow reporters to mark which modules are impacted: not really scalable, especially since reporters won't be experts in the same way that maintainers are.
- Do something in a neutral space, run by an independent organization: There's no reason this couldn't eventually be implemented under this API. It is contingent on that work being done and being successfully adopted by others. That shouldn't necessarily prevent us from implementing this and mapping it over to that later.

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I think what this gets at is that there may other tools that will want to use the "asserted" data. The npm repository seems like a reasonable option for the data as it already the source of truth for the package itself. A few ideas off the top of my head:

  • provide a way to get the asserted data for a module without using the npm client (existing UI?, REST enpoint?)
  • Include the data when a module is installed/updated, that would like the local copy be used by other tools.
    allow other tools to leverage the data.

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I would assume this data would be included with existing package metadata and therefore accessible how people already access package metadata.

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Agree here mostly. To get the broader industry support I think this needs to be successful, we will need a well documented schema and set of api's. This feedback is something I have heard from multiple people.

I think the schema and api to load these counter claims needs to be platform agnostic. I think that even "publish this to the npm registry" should be an implementation detail for npm. Preferably npm would just build a client for this contract, or at maybe we need an "extensions" to the api so that npm could say "instead of a GET request to your provider server, install package foo and read file claims.json". Again, this is just rough ideas.

This solution both begins to address the problem that exists presently, doesn't exclude potential external solutions/patterns from being adopted in the future, and allows an implementation to be implemented with _relative_ haste.

## Implementation

{{Give a high-level overview of implementation requirements and concerns. Be specific about areas of code that need to change, and what their potential effects are. Discuss which repositories and sub-components will be affected, and what its overall code effect might be.}}

{{THIS SECTION IS REQUIRED FOR RATIFICATION -- you can skip it if you don't know the technical details when first submitting the proposal, but it must be there before it's accepted}}

## Prior Art

I've not seen other tools doing this, but I would be surprised if there's not prior art. After some searching, I can't find anthing.

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@naugtur links to your work as prior art would be good here.

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I'm working on a clean schema to PR to pkg collab space. Maybe I'll finish on Friday.
I thought this RFC is kept as a historical record. I should create a new one or rewrite this totally.

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The closest that I'm aware of is Snyk's "Runtime prioritization":

Prioritize your fixes based on an analysis of the vulnerabilities that are called at runtime of the application and bear a higher risk

One way of defining "impactful" could be "is an affected function called by the dependency: if it isn't, then it's presumably not an 'impactful' vulnerability".

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Oh wait, it's a different RFC 😅
I'll share links soon then. Thx

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This explains plans and links to most of the stuff
https://dev.to/naugtur/do-you-need-help-with-your-npm-audit-3olf

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And a direct link to the tool
https://www.npmjs.com/package/npm-audit-resolver

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Format for storing and exchanging assertions/decisions/resolutions/thingies

openjs-foundation/pkg-vuln-collab-space#11

## Unresolved Questions and Bikeshedding

- The potential values for the `--assertions` filter on `npm audit` could probably be bikeshedded a bit. I'm unattached to the names.
- UI in `npm audit` outpit could be bikeshedded as well.
- It would be cool if there was the ability to have multiple maintainers run `npm audit assert` for a given `id` and surface that _multiple_ people signed off on the assertion as a way to begin combatting some forms of social engineering attacks we've seen in the past, but that might be too complex for now.