AgentOS remains unauthenticated after GHSA-pm96 patched version and allows remote agent invocation

Summary

PraisonAI's AgentOS FastAPI deployment surface remains unauthenticated in current main and in releases after the published patched version for GHSA-pm96-6xpr-978x / CVE-2026-40151.

The public AgentOS advisory is published as an instruction-disclosure issue with affected versions < 4.5.128 and patched version 4.5.128. However, v4.5.128, latest release v4.6.57, and current main still register GET /api/agents and POST /api/chat without authentication. The chat route directly calls agent.chat(request.message). No-auth and wrong-bearer requests both execute the deployed agent.

This is broader than passive metadata disclosure. In any deployment where AgentOS wraps agents with tools, private context, memory, API integrations, or cost-bearing model calls, an unauthenticated reachable client can drive those agents.

Affected Product

• Repository: MervinPraison/PraisonAI
• Package: praisonai
• Component: src/praisonai/praisonai/app/agentos.py
• Config component: src/praisonai-agents/praisonaiagents/app/config.py
• Public advisory incomplete-fix reference: GHSA-pm96-6xpr-978x / CVE-2026-40151

Confirmed affected dynamically:

• v4.5.126
• v4.5.128 (published patched version for GHSA-pm96-6xpr-978x)
• v4.6.9
• v4.6.10
• v4.6.56
• v4.6.57
• current main 2f9677abb2ea68eab864ee8b6a828fd0141612e1

Static source review found the same unauthenticated route pattern and 0.0.0.0 default in v4.2.1.

Suggested affected range: >= 4.2.1, <= 4.6.57.

Root Cause

AgentOSConfig / AgentAppConfig defaults the deployment host to all interfaces and has no authentication fields:

name: str = "PraisonAI App"
host: str = "0.0.0.0"
port: int = 8000
api_prefix: str = "/api"

AgentOS._register_routes() registers public agent metadata and chat routes without middleware, dependency, API key check, bearer-token check, or startup fail-closed guard:

@app.get(f"{self.config.api_prefix}/agents")
async def list_agents():
    return {"agents": [...]}

@app.post(f"{self.config.api_prefix}/chat", response_model=ChatResponse)
async def chat(request: ChatRequest):
    ...
    response = agent.chat(request.message)

A wrong Authorization header is ignored because the route does not inspect it.

Current main also has a root-export bug where from praisonai import AgentOS raises ImportError, but this does not mitigate the issue. The same class remains reachable through from praisonai import AgentApp and from praisonai.app import AgentOS.

Why This Is Not Intended Behavior

PraisonAI's security documentation says API servers were hardened so anonymous requests return 401 and default binding changed from 0.0.0.0 to 127.0.0.1 after the prior unauthenticated API server class.

The API Server Authentication docs say bearer auth is enabled by default, disabling auth is not recommended for production, and 0.0.0.0 should be used only behind an authenticating proxy.

The local PoV includes a hardened sibling control for the generated deploy API on current main. It returns:

• no auth: 401
• wrong bearer: 401
• correct bearer: 200

AgentOS remains outside that control plane and still accepts no-auth and wrong-bearer /api/chat requests.

Local PoV

The PoV is local-only. It uses FastAPI's in-process test client, a stub agent, and a temporary file side effect. It does not start a network listener, call an LLM provider, or contact any external service.

Command:

env PYTHONPATH="artifacts/repos/praisonai-current/src/praisonai:artifacts/repos/praisonai-current/src/praisonai-agents" \
  uv run --with fastapi --with httpx --with flask --with flask-cors \
    --with pydantic --with typing-extensions --with rich --with python-dotenv \
    submission-bundle/praisonai-prai-cand-007-agentos-incomplete-auth-fix/poc/prai_cand_007_agentos_incomplete_auth_fix.py \
    --repo artifacts/repos/praisonai-current \
    --label current-head

Current-head result summary:

{
  "describe": "v4.6.57-4-g2f9677ab",
  "head": "2f9677abb2ea68eab864ee8b6a828fd0141612e1",
  "agentos_vulnerable": true,
  "entrypoints": [
    {
      "entrypoint": "agentapp_alias",
      "statuses": [200, 200, 200],
      "side_effects": ["no-auth-marker", "wrong-bearer-marker"]
    },
    {
      "entrypoint": "direct_agentos",
      "statuses": [200, 200, 200],
      "side_effects": ["no-auth-marker", "wrong-bearer-marker"]
    }
  ],
  "deploy_api_control": {
    "control_passed": true,
    "statuses": [401, 401, 200]
  }
}

The three AgentOS statuses are for:

• unauthenticated GET /api/agents;
• unauthenticated POST /api/chat;
• wrong-bearer POST /api/chat.

The side-effect list proves both unauthenticated chat requests invoked the agent method.

Minimal inline reproducer:

from pathlib import Path
from tempfile import TemporaryDirectory

from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
from praisonai import AgentApp
from praisonaiagents import AgentOSConfig

class StubAgent:
    name = "pov_agentos_agent"
    role = "tester"
    instructions = "private instruction marker"

    def __init__(self, out):
        self.out = out

    def chat(self, message):
        self.out.write_text(self.out.read_text() + message + "\n")
        return "PRAI_CAND_007_AGENTOS_EXECUTED:" + message

with TemporaryDirectory() as tmp:
    side_effect = Path(tmp) / "side_effects.txt"
    side_effect.write_text("")
    app = AgentApp(
        agents=[StubAgent(side_effect)],
        config=AgentOSConfig(host="0.0.0.0", port=8000),
    )
    client = TestClient(app.get_app())

    assert client.get("/api/agents").status_code == 200
    assert client.post("/api/chat", json={"message": "no-auth"}).status_code == 200
    assert client.post(
        "/api/chat",
        headers={"Authorization": "Bearer definitely-wrong"},
        json={"message": "wrong-bearer"},
    ).status_code == 200
    assert side_effect.read_text().splitlines() == ["no-auth", "wrong-bearer"]

Version Sweep

Evidence files are retained locally under the bundle's evidence/ directory and can be provided if useful.

Duplicate / Incomplete-Fix Notes

This report is related to GHSA-pm96-6xpr-978x / CVE-2026-40151. The published advisory describes AgentOS instruction disclosure and lists 4.5.128 as patched. It also mentions unauthenticated /api/chat as a chained instruction-extraction path.

The current report should be treated as an incomplete fix / affected-range correction with a broader demonstrated impact:

• the published patched version v4.5.128 still reproduces;
• latest release v4.6.57 still reproduces;
• current main still reproduces;
• the PoV proves unauthorized agent invocation and side effects, not only instruction disclosure.

This is distinct from private PRAI-CAND-003 / GHSA-x8cv-xmq7-p8xp, which covers praisonaiagents.AgentTeam.launch() routes. This report covers praisonai.app.AgentOS and AgentApp alias routes.

Impact

If an operator exposes an AgentOS app on a reachable interface, any client that can reach it can:

• enumerate deployed agents through GET /api/agents;
• read agent names, roles, and instruction snippets;
• invoke the default agent or a named agent through POST /api/chat;
• trigger downstream tools, private context reads, memory accesses, API integrations, browser actions, or other side effects attached to the agent;
• consume model/API budget through repeated invocation.

The exact downstream impact depends on the deployed agents. The framework-level boundary failure is that a production deployment surface exposes agent control without authentication and defaults to binding on all interfaces.

Suggested Fix

Use the same security model already applied to generated API deployments:

• add authentication fields to AgentOSConfig / AgentAppConfig;
• default auth to enabled;
• default bind host to 127.0.0.1;
• reject no-auth and wrong-bearer requests for GET /api/agents and POST /api/chat;
• fail closed for non-loopback binds unless auth is configured or an explicit unsafe development opt-out is set;
• avoid returning instruction text from unauthenticated metadata endpoints;
• add regression tests for no auth, wrong bearer, correct bearer, and external bind without auth.

Maintainers can either update GHSA-pm96-6xpr-978x with the corrected affected range and broader impact or publish a separate incomplete-fix advisory.

Suggested Severity

Suggested severity: Critical.

The Critical score matches the unauthenticated agent-control model: network attacker, low complexity, no privileges, no user interaction, and high deployment-dependent impact when agents are connected to tools, private data, or cost-bearing services. If maintainers score only a minimal no-tool demo agent, the impact may be lower, but the current default framework behavior is still unauthenticated agent invocation.