Audit 2026-05-11 A-8 closure. Closes the deferred Phase 2 leg of the
2026-05-10 HIGH-12 closure (2e97cc1) — production-startup observability
for actor-demo-anon residual grants + CI guard banning new synthetic-
admin code paths.
What this changes:
* cmd/server/preflight_demo_residual.go (new) runs after the DB pool +
audit service are constructed and before the HTTPS listener starts.
Under any non-'none' auth type it queries actor_roles for the
synthetic actor-demo-anon and emits a WARN log + a categorized audit
row (auth.demo_residual_grants_detected) listing every grant
present. Migration 000029 unconditionally seeds the ar-demo-anon-admin
row at install time, so EVERY production deploy will see this WARN
on first boot; the intended cutover workflow is cleanup-once at
production handover.
* CERTCTL_DEMO_MODE_RESIDUAL_STRICT (new env var on AuthConfig,
default false) pivots the WARN to fail-closed startup refusal for
operators who want a paranoid posture against re-seeding.
* POST /api/v1/auth/demo-residual/cleanup (new handler at
internal/api/handler/demo_residual.go) is an admin-class
(auth.role.assign) endpoint that removes every actor-demo-anon row
from actor_roles and returns {removed: int64}. Idempotent; refuses
503 under Auth.Type=none (deleting the row would break the demo
path); audit-logs every invocation including no-op zero-removed
calls so the admin's action is always recorded.
* scripts/ci-guards/no-new-synthetic-admin.sh pins the 17-entry
allowlist of source files that legitimately reference the
actor-demo-anon literal. New runtime code paths that resolve to the
synthetic actor (the same pattern that produced the original CRIT
class) are rejected at PR time. CI workflow auto-picks the script
via the existing scripts/ci-guards/*.sh loop in .github/workflows/
ci.yml; no workflow edit needed.
Regression matrix:
* cmd/server/preflight_demo_residual_test.go — 7 tests covering the
4 main behaviour branches (testcontainers-backed, testing.Short()-
skipped: DemoModeActive_Skips, NoResidue_Passes, HasResidue_LogsAnd
Audits, StrictMode_RefusesStartup, DeleteDemoAnonResidue_Idempotent)
plus 3 pure-Go stdlib unit tests for the row-string formatter +
nil-safety contracts on both helpers.
* internal/api/handler/demo_residual_test.go — 7 stdlib+httptest
cases: HappyPath, Idempotent_ReturnsZero, RejectsInDemoMode (503),
CleanupError_Surfaces500, NilCleanupFn (defensive 500),
NilAuditWriter_DoesNotPanic, MissingActorContext (falls back to
'unknown' actor in the audit row).
* internal/api/router/openapi_parity_test.go — new
POST /api/v1/auth/demo-residual/cleanup entry plus 6 pre-existing
pre-A-8 entries (oidc/test, jwks-status, users CRUD, runtime-config)
that had drifted out of SpecParityExceptions; the parity test was
red on dev/auth-bundle-2 before my work; this commit returns it to
green with full per-entry justifications + parity-debt notes.
Docs:
* docs/operator/security.md — new 'Demo-to-production cutover (Audit
2026-05-11 A-8)' section explaining the WARN message, the cleanup
curl one-liner, the equivalent SQL, the strict-mode env var, and
the CI guard.
* docs/operator/rbac.md — Last-reviewed bump + pointer to the new
env var + the security.md section.
* cowork/auth-bundles-audit-2026-05-10.md — HIGH-12 row gains an
'A-8 follow-on CLOSED 2026-05-11' annotation describing the
deferred Phase 2 leg now landed.
* CHANGELOG.md — Unreleased ### Security entry summarizing the four
legs (detector + cleanup + strict-mode flag + CI guard) and the
acquisition-readiness narrative this closes.
Operator-facing impact: this closes a credibility gap, not an
exploitable vulnerability. The residue requires a regression
elsewhere in the middleware chain to be exploitable. After this
fix, the canonical narrative ('RBAC primitive with no synthetic-
admin fallback') is fully true.
Refs cowork/auth-bundles-fixes-2026-05-11/08-high-demo-mode-residual-
cleanup.md.
shankar0123