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Update brace-expansion to patched 1.1.16 - #12

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Update brace-expansion to patched 1.1.16#12
sergiou87 with Copilot wants to merge 2 commits into
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copilot/fix-brace-expansion-vulnerability

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Copilot AI commented Jul 31, 2026

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brace-expansion@1.1.13 is vulnerable to exponential-time expansion, enabling denial of service through crafted brace patterns.

  • Dependency update

    • Update the nested development dependency to the lowest patched version, 1.1.16.
  • Reachability assessment — not reachable (high confidence)

    • The package is only present through Jest coverage tooling: test-exclude → minimatch → brace-expansion.
    • Runtime code does not use brace expansion, minimatch, or glob APIs.
    • This update primarily satisfies vulnerability scanners and protects development tooling.
  • Dependency resolution

    • npm requires --legacy-peer-deps due to the existing ts-jest@29.4.6 and TypeScript 6 peer-version conflict.
    • Other npm audit findings are unrelated to this alert.
Original prompt

This section details the Dependabot vulnerability alert you should resolve

<alert_title>brace-expansion: DoS via exponential-time expansion of consecutive non-expanding {} groups</alert_title>
<alert_description>### Summary
brace-expansion's expand() exhibits exponential-time - O(2ⁿ) - behavior in the number of consecutive non-expanding {} groups. A short, all-ASCII input (~90 bytes/30 groups) blocks the calling thread for minutes; a slightly longer input hangs it effectively indefinitely. Because the dominant consumers run on Node's single-threaded event loop, one small input can fully stall a worker/process.

In expand_, post is computed unconditionally at the top of the function, before the early-return branches that don't use it:

const post = m.post.length ? expand_(m.post, max, false) : [''];   // always recurses
  ...
if (!isSequence && !isOptions) {
  if (m.post.match(/,(?!,).*\}/)) {
    str = m.pre + '{' + m.body + escClose + m.post;
    return expand_(str, max, true); // restart — `post` discarded
  }
  return [str];
}

For input like a{},{},…, the first {} is non-expanding, so control reaches the {a},b} rewrite branch - but expand_ has already recursed into post over the entire remaining tail, only to throw the result away.
Each level therefore spawns two recursive expansions over essentially the same remaining work: T(n) = 2·T(n−1) ⇒ O(2ⁿ).

The max option does not mitigate this: max only bounds the output-building loops; neither the post recursion nor the rewrite recursion consults it.

Measured on 5.0.6:

groups (n) input bytes time
20 60 130 ms
24 72 1.9 s
26 78 7.8 s
30 (PoC) 90 ~2 min

Proof of concept

const { expand } = require('brace-expansion');
// 30 non-expanding groups, ~90 bytes — blocks for minutes:
expand('a{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{},{}');

Impact

Any application that passes attacker-influenced strings to brace-expansion.expand() - directly or transitively via minimatch/glob brace patterns - can be driven into a multi-minute-to-indefinite CPU hang by a tiny request, denying service on that thread/process.

Remediation

Upgrade to a patched release. The fix:

  1. Defers computing post until after the early-return branches (and computes it locally in the $-suffix branch), so post is only expanded when a brace set actually expands and the value is used. This alone removes the exponential.
  2. Converts the {a},b} rewrite from recursion to an in-function loop, so a long run of rewrites cannot grow the call stack.

Verified: the PoC drops from ~2 min to 0.55 ms, 5,000 groups complete in ~344 ms, and output is identical to 5.0.6 across a behavioral-equivalence suite (sequences, padding, $-prefix, a{},b}c, {},a}b, x{{a,b}}y, etc.). Post-fix complexity is ~O(n²) on this input class - acceptable for the security fix; a linear rewrite can be a non-urgent follow-up.

If immediate upgrade isn't possible, avoid passing untrusted input to expand() / glob brace patterns, or run such expansion under a timeout/worker.</alert_description>

high
GHSA-3jxr-9vmj-r5cp, CVE-2026-13149
brace-expansion
npm
<vulnerable_versions>1.1.13</vulnerable_versions>
<patched_version>1.1.16</patched_version>
<manifest_path>package-lock.json</manifest_path>

https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/security/advisories/GHSA-3jxr-9vmj-r5cp https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-13149 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/pull/122 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/pull/123 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/835d6be91201122d9adffb0c0c8c094189ace265 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/c7e33ec13ac1a684c116720843ce24e208611754 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/commit/d74e63030c012e3b7ae81657b8d665619cd51b95 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/releases/tag/v1.1.16 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/releases/tag/v2.1.2 https://github.com/juliangruber/brace-expansion/releases/tag/v5.0.7 https://www.npmjs.com/package/brace-expansion https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-3jxr-9vmj-r5cp

<task_instructions>Resolve this alert by updating the affected package to a non-vulnerable version. Prefer the lowest non-vulnerable version (see the patched_version field above) over the latest to minimize breaking changes. Include a Reachability Assessment section in the PR description. Review the alert_description field to understand which APIs, features, or configurations are affected, then search the codebase for usage of those specific items. If the vulnerable code path is reachable, explain how (which files, APIs, or call sites...

  • Resolves github/copilot-release-notes alert #24

Copilot AI changed the title [WIP] Fix brace-expansion DoS vulnerability Update brace-expansion to patched 1.1.16 Jul 31, 2026
Copilot AI requested a review from sergiou87 July 31, 2026 15:25
@sergiou87
sergiou87 requested a review from Copilot July 31, 2026 15:26

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Copilot wasn't able to review any files in this pull request.

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curl --header "X-GitHub-Api-Version:2026-03-10" https://api.github.com/zen

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Desinstalar

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Desisntala Api

@sergiou87
sergiou87 requested a review from Copilot July 31, 2026 19:58

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Copilot wasn't able to review any files in this pull request.

@sergiou87
sergiou87 marked this pull request as ready for review August 3, 2026 10:26
@sergiou87
sergiou87 requested a review from a team as a code owner August 3, 2026 10:26
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sergiou87 requested a review from Copilot August 3, 2026 10:26

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4 participants