If you discover a security vulnerability in Cortex, please report it responsibly.

1. Do NOT open a public GitHub issue for security vulnerabilities.
2. Email your report to: me@darshanchheda.com
3. Include:
   • Description of the vulnerability
   • Steps to reproduce
   • Potential impact
   • Suggested fix (if any)

• Acknowledgment: Within 48 hours of your report
• Assessment: Within 7 days, we will assess the severity and impact
• Fix timeline: Critical vulnerabilities will be patched within 14 days
• Disclosure: We follow coordinated disclosure. We will work with you on timing.

The following are in scope for security reports:

• Remote code execution via MCP tool calls
• SQL injection in graph queries
• Path traversal in file operations
• Information disclosure of sensitive file contents
• Denial of service via resource exhaustion
• Authentication/authorization bypass (if applicable)

• Vulnerabilities in dependencies (report to upstream maintainers)
• Issues requiring physical access to the machine
• Social engineering attacks
• Denial of service via legitimate heavy usage

Cortex is designed with the following security principles:

1. Local-only by default: MCP communication is via stdio, no network ports opened unless explicitly requested
2. Read-only graph access: MCP queries use read-only database connections
3. No code execution: Cortex never executes code from indexed repositories
4. No secrets in logs: Tracing never logs file contents, observation text, or source code
5. Input sanitization: All FTS5 queries are sanitized to prevent injection
6. Air-gap compatible: All features work without network access (except OSV.dev checks)