If you believe you have found a security vulnerability in ResearchOS, please do not open a public issue. Use one of the following private channels:

1. GitHub Private Vulnerability Reporting (preferred). Open a draft advisory at https://github.com/SamSi0322/ResearchOS/security/advisories/new. The advisory stays private until we publish it; we can coordinate the fix with you in the same thread.

2. Email: yuan.si@uwaterloo.ca. Encrypt at your discretion. The mailbox is not formally monitored 24/7 — if the issue is time-sensitive, GitHub Private Vulnerability Reporting is the faster channel.

Please include:

• A clear description of the vulnerability and the impact (what an attacker can read, write, or do).
• Reproduction steps — ideally a minimal curl or Python snippet against a local install.
• The commit hash you reproduced against (git rev-parse HEAD).
• Your run mode (mock, smoke, or production) and the relevant RESEARCHOS_* env vars at the time, if relevant.

ResearchOS is at the local-MVP stage. Only the latest commit on main is supported; older tags or branches receive no security backports. If you are running an older copy, please upgrade before reporting.

This is a single-maintainer open-source project under AGPL-3.0. Response is best effort, no SLA. You can typically expect:

• An initial acknowledgement within ~5 business days.
• A triage decision (severity, planned fix window, or rejection with reason) within ~14 days of acknowledgement.
• Coordinated disclosure once a fix or mitigation is in place.

If you do not hear back within those windows, please follow up — bounce backs and missed pings are far more likely than malice.

In scope:

• The FastAPI backend under backend/app/ and its provider adapters (OpenAI, Anthropic, mock).
• The Vite/React operator console under frontend/.
• The encrypted secret store, model alias / capability gates, and HITL approval flow.
• Anything that could cause a stored API key to leak out of the local install.

Out of scope:

• Vulnerabilities in upstream dependencies — please report those upstream first; if a downstream mitigation makes sense in ResearchOS, file a follow-up here once the upstream advisory is public.
• Local denial-of-service from someone who already has shell access on the host (ResearchOS is single-tenant, single-host by design).
• Cosmetic or UX issues. File a regular issue for those.