Risk Register

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Risk Register

Overview

Comprehensive risk assessment for the ClawAI platform. Each risk is evaluated for likelihood (1-5) and impact (1-5), producing a risk score (L x I). Risks scoring 15+ require immediate mitigation.

Last updated: 2026-04-11

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Risk Scoring

Score	Likelihood	Impact
1	Rare	Negligible
2	Unlikely	Minor
3	Possible	Moderate
4	Likely	Major
5	Almost certain	Severe

Risk Rating: Low (1-6), Medium (7-12), High (13-19), Critical (20-25)

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1. Operational Risks

OPS-001: Ollama Service Unavailable

Aspect	Detail
Description	Ollama runtime crashes, runs out of memory, or becomes unresponsive
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	4 (Major -- AUTO routing degrades, LOCAL_ONLY breaks, memory extraction stops)
Score	12 (Medium)
Mitigation	Heuristic fallback for AUTO (10s timeout). Health monitoring. Docker restart policy. Memory limits on Ollama container.
Status	Partially mitigated

OPS-002: Cloud Provider API Outage

Aspect	Detail
Description	One or more cloud providers experience outage or rate limiting
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- fallback chain handles it)
Score	9 (Medium)
Mitigation	Fallback chain (primary -> fallback -> local). Connector health checks. Multiple providers configured.
Status	Mitigated

OPS-003: Database Disk Full

Aspect	Detail
Description	PostgreSQL or MongoDB exhausts disk space
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	5 (Severe -- write failures cascade)
Score	15 (High)
Mitigation	MongoDB TTL (30 days on logs). Disk monitoring needed. Data archival strategy needed.
Status	Partially mitigated

OPS-004: RabbitMQ Queue Backlog

Aspect	Detail
Description	Consumer services fall behind, causing memory pressure on RabbitMQ
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely)
Impact	4 (Major -- delayed processing, potential crash)
Score	8 (Medium)
Mitigation	DLQ with 3 retries. Queue depth monitoring available. Scale consumers horizontally when needed.
Status	Partially mitigated

OPS-005: Container Orchestration Failure

Aspect	Detail
Description	Docker daemon crashes or Docker Compose state becomes inconsistent
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely)
Impact	5 (Severe -- complete system outage)
Score	10 (Medium)
Mitigation	restart: unless-stopped on all containers. Recovery documented. Kubernetes for production.
Status	Partially mitigated

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2. Security Risks

SEC-001: JWT Tokens in localStorage

Aspect	Detail
Description	JWT tokens accessible to XSS attacks
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely -- React escaping, CSP headers, no dangerouslySetInnerHTML)
Impact	5 (Severe -- full account takeover)
Score	10 (Medium)
Mitigation	Helmet headers. React XSS protection. Short token lifetime. Refresh rotation. httpOnly cookies planned (TD-008).
Status	Risk accepted; migration planned

SEC-002: API Key Storage

Aspect	Detail
Description	ENCRYPTION_KEY compromise exposes all provider API keys
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely -- env vars not committed, requires server access)
Impact	5 (Severe -- financial abuse of provider accounts)
Score	10 (Medium)
Mitigation	AES-256-GCM encryption. Log redaction. Only connector-service accesses keys. Secrets manager planned.
Status	Mitigated with encryption

SEC-003: Insufficient Input Validation

Aspect	Detail
Description	Some string fields may lack adequate length restrictions
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely -- Zod enforced, Prisma parameterizes)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- oversized payloads, slow queries)
Score	6 (Low)
Mitigation	Zod .max() on all strings/arrays. Prisma ORM. Rate limiting.
Status	Mitigated

SEC-004: Inter-Service Communication Not Authenticated

Aspect	Detail
Description	Internal HTTP calls between services carry no authentication
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely -- Docker network isolation)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- unauthorized data access if network compromised)
Score	6 (Low)
Mitigation	Docker network isolation. Nginx only routes external traffic. mTLS planned for production.
Status	Risk accepted

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SEC-005: Coding-agent organisation membership is not checked

Aspect	Detail
Description	FleetController.listMembers, listDevices, addMember and SamlController.setMetadata (apps/claw-agent-service/src/modules/fleet/) never check that the caller belongs to the organisation. A signed-in user who knows an organisation id can add a member to it, and one who knows a slug can set its SAML metadata.
Likelihood	3 (Possible -- ids are not secret once shared; no UI, API only)
Impact	4 (Major -- a self-added OWNER can then change the organisation's coding-agent policy)
Score	12 (High)
Mitigation	Fixed in commit cbe566511: OrganizationAccessService checks membership and role in the service layer; outsiders get 404; only an OWNER grants OWNER. Production had 0 organisations, so nothing was exploited. REQ-SEC-001.
Status	Closed (2026-09-26)

SEC-006: Per-chat privacy switches are not honoured on write and feed paths

Aspect	Detail
Description	Found by the chat capability audit (2026-09-29). (a) useMemory=false on a chat stops memories being injected into it, but memory-service handleMessageCompleted still extracts memories from that chat and may auto-approve them. (b) A chat with useCrossThreadContext=false reads no other chat, but findCandidateThreads does not exclude it, so its content can still be retrieved INTO other chats. Both stay within the same user (no cross-tenant exposure).
Likelihood	4 (Likely -- the default path for anyone who turns memory off in one chat)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- a user's own content resurfaces against their stated choice; no other user sees it)
Score	12 (High)
Mitigation	Fixed 2026-09-30 (chat-supremacy Batch 3): message.completed carries useMemory and memory-service skips extraction when false; findCandidateThreads requires useMemory and useCrossThreadContext on every candidate. Rule 57 §15, ADR-087 addendum, REQ-CHAT-002.
Status	Closed (2026-09-30)

3. Reliability Risks

REL-001: Single Points of Failure

Aspect	Detail
Description	Every component runs as a single instance
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	4 (Major -- feature or total outage)
Score	12 (Medium)
Mitigation	Docker restart policies. Health monitoring. Stateless design enables future scaling. Kubernetes planned.
Status	Partially mitigated

REL-002: No Horizontal Scaling

Aspect	Detail
Description	Services cannot scale to handle load spikes
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- degraded performance)
Score	9 (Medium)
Mitigation	Stateless services. Competing consumers in RabbitMQ. PgBouncer needed.
Status	Architecture ready; infrastructure not

REL-003: Cascading Failure

Aspect	Detail
Description	Redis/RabbitMQ/Nginx failure affects all services
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely)
Impact	5 (Severe)
Score	10 (Medium)
Mitigation	Graceful degradation (rate limiting fallback). RabbitMQ publisher retry. Redis Sentinel and RabbitMQ cluster for production.
Status	Partial

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4. Data Risks

DAT-001: No Automated Backups

Aspect	Detail
Description	No automated backup for any database
Likelihood	4 (Likely -- without backups, the need increases over time)
Impact	5 (Severe -- permanent data loss)
Score	20 (Critical)
Mitigation	Immediate: Implement pg_dump/mongodump daily. Test restore within 2 weeks. Store backups off-host. WAL archiving for PG.
Status	NOT MITIGATED -- highest priority

DAT-002: Prisma Migration Failures

Aspect	Detail
Description	Schema migrations fail mid-execution
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely -- PostgreSQL transactional DDL)
Impact	4 (Major -- service cannot start)
Score	8 (Medium)
Mitigation	Prisma transactions. Test on data copy. Rollback scripts. Never modify existing migrations.
Status	Partially mitigated

DAT-003: Connector Configuration Loss

Aspect	Detail
Description	Loss of encrypted connector configs requires re-entering all API keys
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely)
Impact	4 (Major)
Score	8 (Medium)
Mitigation	Database backups (when implemented). Document configured connectors. Export/import feature planned.
Status	Depends on DAT-001

DAT-004: MongoDB TTL Premature Expiry

Aspect	Detail
Description	Log data expires after 30 days; audit investigations may need older data
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- incomplete audit trail)
Score	9 (Medium)
Mitigation	Audit logs (claw_audit) have NO TTL. Only client/server logs expire. Archive to cold storage if needed.
Status	Partially mitigated

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5. Performance Risks

PERF-001: Context Assembly Latency

Aspect	Detail
Description	N+1 HTTP calls for memories, files, context packs
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- 2-5s delay)
Score	9 (Medium)
Mitigation	Parallelize HTTP calls. Batch endpoints. Redis caching for context packs.
Status	Not mitigated

PERF-002: Ollama Cold Start

Aspect	Detail
Description	First request takes 10-30s for model loading
Likelihood	4 (Likely)
Impact	2 (Minor -- only first request)
Score	8 (Medium)
Mitigation	Ollama memory caching. Pre-warm via health check. Document expected behavior.
Status	Partially mitigated

PERF-003: Memory Extraction Backlog

Aspect	Detail
Description	Extraction falls behind under high message volume
Likelihood	2 (Unlikely)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- delayed extraction, Ollama contention)
Score	6 (Low)
Mitigation	Async via RabbitMQ (non-blocking). DLQ prevents queue blocking. Dedicated Ollama instance possible.
Status	Risk accepted

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6. Business Risks

BIZ-001: Provider API Breaking Changes

Aspect	Detail
Description	Cloud providers change APIs or deprecate models
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- one provider stops until adapter updated)
Score	9 (Medium)
Mitigation	Adapter pattern isolates changes. Fallback chains. Monitor provider changelogs. Pin SDK versions.
Status	Mitigated by architecture

BIZ-002: Cloud AI Cost Overruns

Aspect	Detail
Description	Unrestricted usage of expensive models
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	4 (Major -- financial impact)
Score	12 (Medium)
Mitigation	Usage ledger tracking. COST_SAVER/LOCAL_ONLY modes. Spending alerts planned. Per-user limits planned.
Status	Partially mitigated

BIZ-003: Data Privacy Compliance

Aspect	Detail
Description	Data sent to cloud providers may violate regulations
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	5 (Severe -- legal liability)
Score	15 (High)
Mitigation	PRIVACY_FIRST and LOCAL_ONLY modes. Routing transparency. Audit trail. Data classification needed. DPA templates needed.
Status	Partially mitigated

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BIZ-004: Positioning over-promises teams features

Aspect	Detail
Description	The 2026-09-26 positioning ("bring your team", ADR-126) invites business buyers to expect SSO and a shared team account; neither exists, and the Team plan's seeded description promises pooling that is not built.
Likelihood	3 (Possible)
Impact	3 (Moderate -- refunds, churn, trust)
Score	9 (Medium)
Mitigation	Copy bounded by the flagship catalog gap table; REQ-POS-005 and REQ-POS-006 track the missing features.
Status	Open

Risk Heat Map

Impact
  5 |  DAT-001(20)  SEC-001(10)  OPS-003(15)
    |               SEC-002(10)  REL-003(10)  OPS-005(10)
  4 |  DAT-002(8)   REL-001(12)  BIZ-002(12)
    |  DAT-003(8)   REL-002(9)   OPS-001(12)  OPS-004(8)
  3 |  SEC-004(6)   PERF-001(9)  BIZ-001(9)   BIZ-003(15)
    |  PERF-003(6)  DAT-004(9)   OPS-002(9)
  2 |               SEC-003(6)   PERF-002(8)
    |
  1 |
    +-------------------------------------------
       1            2            3            4       5
                         Likelihood

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Top 5 Risks Requiring Immediate Action

Rank	ID	Risk	Score	Required Action
1	DAT-001	No automated backups	20	Implement automated daily backups for all databases
2	OPS-003	Database disk full	15	Set up disk monitoring and alerting
3	BIZ-003	Data privacy compliance	15	Document data flows; implement classification
4	REL-001	Single points of failure	12	Plan HA strategy; implement health-based restarts
5	BIZ-002	Cloud AI cost overruns	12	Implement spending alerts and limits