vfhe

Every workflow declares an explicit permissions: block; the top-level default is minimal (contents: read) and individual jobs elevate only what they need — id-token: write for Trusted Publishing, attestations: write for provenance, pull-requests: write for the coverage comment. No job runs with broader scope than its task requires.

The release workflow's manual inputs are validated before use: target is a fixed choice list, and a dedicated first step exits non-zero unless the pypi target runs from a tag and the testpypi target supplies a version. All collaborator inputs enter shell steps only as quoted environment variables, never interpolated into the script body.

Every release asset is associated with the version identifier: the sdist filename embeds it, the immutable git tag and PyPI version fix it, and the SBOM and Sigstore provenance are attached to that tagged GitHub release. The version is derived from the tag by setuptools-scm, so all assets of a release share one identifier.

The secrets policy is documented in SECURITY.md ("Secrets and credentials"). The project stores no long-lived secrets: PyPI publishing uses Trusted Publishing (short-lived OIDC tokens minted per run) and releases are signed with Sigstore's ephemeral keys, so there is nothing to rotate. GitHub Actions runs with a read-only default token, elevated per job only where needed; a detect-private-key pre-commit hook and GitHub push protection block accidental credential commits; nothing sensitive is hard-coded.

README ("Verifying a release") gives the technology, exact commands, and expected output to verify integrity and authenticity: download the sdist and run gh attestation verify <sdist> --repo vfhe/vfhe, which validates the Sigstore build provenance against the artifact's digest. PyPI additionally records these attestations on the project files page.

The same README section documents the expected authoring identity: successful verification shows the signer as the .github/workflows/release.yml workflow of vfhe/vfhe, issued through GitHub Actions' OIDC (https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com). A mismatched or absent identity indicates the artifact is not a genuine release.

SUPPORT.md describes the support scope and duration: as pre-release (0.x) software, only the latest PyPI release is supported and receives bug fixes and security updates; there are no back-branches or long-term support, and every 0.x release may contain breaking changes. The types of support and channels (Zulip, issues, private security reporting) are stated, and the policy will be revised at 1.0.

SUPPORT.md (and SECURITY.md "Supported versions") states that a release stops receiving security updates as soon as a newer release supersedes it; upgrading to the latest release is the supported remediation path for any fixed issue.

AUTHORS.md documents the policy: escalated permissions (merge rights and access to the GitHub organization, the PyPI project, or the release pipeline) are granted only after review and approval by the existing maintainers, only to contributors with an established, identifiable track record on the project, scoped to what the role requires and revoked when no longer needed.

Each release ships a CycloneDX SBOM, auto-generated at build time by cyclonedx-py (the OWASP CycloneDX project's Python tool) from the installed package environment, and attached to the GitHub release. Reproducible output is enabled for deterministic SBOMs.

The project is a single source-code repository. Third-party components are vendored as declared git submodules pinned to specific commits, not additional project subprojects, so there are no subproject repositories to which this requirement applies.

CONTRIBUTING.md and docs/DEVELOPMENT.md (p.6) document when and how tests run: locally via make test (complete) and make test-fast, and in CI on every pull request across Linux and macOS on Python 3.10–3.14. The docs explain what the suites cover (C unit tests, the Python suite including heavy FHE bootstraps, sdist install-and-smoke) and how to read the result, the single CI OK gate.

CONTRIBUTING.md ("Testing policy") states that any change adding or altering functionality MUST add or update automated tests covering it, a new kernel, a new Python API, a bug fix (a test that fails before and passes after), or a behavioural change, while pure refactors, documentation, and CI changes are exempt. Reviewers hold pull requests to this.

The branch ruleset on the default branch requires a pull request with at least one approving review from a non-author before merging; direct pushes are rejected.

docs/THREAT_MODEL.md provides the threat modeling and attack-surface analysis: it enumerates actors and trust boundaries (identifying the Python→C cffi boundary as primary), the assets, and each threat class (memory-safety bugs reachable from inputs, cryptographic incorrectness, weak randomness, engine-mode mismatch, malicious runtime compilation, supply-chain tampering) with its mitigations and residual gaps. It is maintained as features and breaking changes land.

The project maintains an OpenVEX feed (docs/vex/vfhe.openvex.json) with a documented policy (docs/vex/README.md): when a scanner reports a vulnerability in a dependency that review finds VFHE does not execute, a not_affected statement with justification and impact statement is published there rather than treated as a release blocker. The feed is empty while no such vulnerability is outstanding.

SECURITY.md ("Dependency and static-analysis policy") defines the SCA remediation threshold: no dependency with a known high- or critical-severity vulnerability, and no dependency under a license incompatible with Apache-2.0, may be merged or released; lower-severity findings are triaged and tracked. Identification is via dependency-review and Dependabot; prioritization is by severity; remediation is by update or documented non-exploitability.

The SECURITY.md policy states that a release is blocked while any unresolved high/critical dependency finding applies to the shipped code, and compliance is enforced by the dependency-review status check required on every pull request that reaches the default branch.

All changes are automatically evaluated by the dependency-review status check, which runs a Software Composition Analysis on every pull request and blocks merge when it detects a dependency with a known vulnerability or an incompatible license; non-exploitable findings are suppressed via the project's VEX feed. The check is required by the default-branch ruleset.

SECURITY.md ("Dependency and static-analysis policy") defines the SAST remediation threshold: no CodeQL alert of high severity or above may be merged unresolved; each is fixed, or, if a true false positive, dismissed with a written justification recorded in the alert. CodeQL analyses every pull request and the default branch.

All changes are automatically evaluated by CodeQL (SAST) on every pull request; the analysis blocks merge on unresolved high-or-above alerts, with non-exploitable results dismissed and justified in the alert. The CodeQL checks are required by the default-branch ruleset.