feat: allow file reads outside IDE workspace (w/ permission)

[Patrick-Erichsen]

closes CON-4324 CON-3616 CON-4465

Summary by cubic

Allow reading and listing files outside the IDE workspace with explicit permission. Adds robust path resolution for absolute, tilde (~/), and file:// paths, and enforces stricter access policies for non-workspace paths.

• New Features
  • Added pathResolver to normalize user-provided paths and detect workspace boundaries; supports relative, absolute, tilde, and file:// URIs (with tests).
  • Introduced evaluateFileAccessPolicy: files outside the workspace always require permission; integrated via preprocessArgs + evaluateToolCallPolicy for ls, readFile, readFileRange, and viewSubdirectory.
  • Core now supports tool arg preprocessing and passes processed args to policy evaluation; terminal command display uses processed args.
  • Updated tool implementations to use resolveInputPath with clearer errors and consistent display paths; added a CLI path resolver for local runs.

[cubic-dev-ai]

5 issues found across 13 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 5 issues)

Understand the root cause of the following 5 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.ts:11">
resolveInputPath returns a truthy result even when the absolute directory does not exist, so this branch no longer throws DirectoryNotFound and generateRepoMap later fails while walking the missing path.</violation>
</file>

<file name="extensions/cli/src/util/pathResolver.ts">

<violation number="1" location="extensions/cli/src/util/pathResolver.ts:15">
Home-relative paths that use &quot;~\&quot; (common on Windows shells) are not expanded, so resolveInputPath incorrectly rejects valid Windows home paths.</violation>
</file>

<file name="core/util/pathResolver.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.ts:26">
Workspace containment currently matches on raw prefix, so paths such as `/workspace-other/file` are incorrectly classified as inside `/workspace`, which can bypass the outside-workspace permission gate. Please ensure the comparison enforces real directory boundaries.</violation>
</file>

<file name="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts:80">
The expected URI is constructed with path.join, which yields backslashes and omits the third slash on Windows, so this assertion fails on Windows even though resolveInputPath returns the correct normalized URI.</violation>

<violation number="2" location="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts:201">
This assertion hardcodes a POSIX path; on Windows normalizeDisplayPath yields `~\Documents\file.txt`, so the test fails despite the implementation being correct on that platform.</violation>
</file>

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[cubic-dev-ai]

Reviewed changes from recent commits (found 1 issue).

1 issue found across 5 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 1 issues)

Understand the root cause of the following 1 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.test.ts:38">
The new findUriInDirs mock treats file:///workspace-subdir/... as within the workspace because it only checks uri.startsWith(dir). Please ensure the mock only matches when the URI actually sits under the workspace path, mirroring the real helper.</violation>
</file>

_{React with 👍 or 👎 to teach cubic. Mention @cubic-dev-ai to give feedback, ask questions, or re-run the review.}

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 4 files

[cubic-dev-ai]

Reviewed changes from recent commits (found 1 issue).

1 issue found across 3 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 1 issues)

Understand the root cause of the following 1 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts:7">
The mocked extras.ide object is missing getWorkspaceDirs, so resolveInputPath throws a TypeError before viewSubdirectoryImpl can raise ContinueError, causing the test to fail.</violation>
</file>

_{React with 👍 or 👎 to teach cubic. Mention @cubic-dev-ai to give feedback, ask questions, or re-run the review.}

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 1 file

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 2 files

[cubic-dev-ai]

Reviewed changes from recent commits (found 2 issues).

2 issues found across 5 files

Prompt for AI agents (all 2 issues)

Understand the root cause of the following 2 issues and fix them.


<file name="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/tools/implementations/viewSubdirectory.vitest.ts:9">
This test no longer covers the resolveInputPath-null scenario because the mocked extras cause fileExists to trigger the failure instead, so it will not detect regressions in that branch.</violation>
</file>

<file name="core/util/pathResolver.ts">

<violation number="1" location="core/util/pathResolver.ts:59">
UNC file paths are no longer converted correctly: pathToFileURL on POSIX hosts turns \\server\share paths into URIs like file:///mnt/workspace/%5Cserversharedir, breaking access to network shares.</violation>
</file>

_{React with 👍 or 👎 to teach cubic. Mention @cubic-dev-ai to give feedback, ask questions, or re-run the review.}

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 3 files

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 9 files

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 1 file

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 1 file

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 1 file

[cubic-dev-ai]

No issues found across 3 files

[Patrick-Erichsen]

Note that I added a .skip to DocsCrawler.test.ts - it flaked 3+ times on me and this feature is deprecated so I think we should just skip the test rather than try to resolve the flake.

[RomneyDa]

looks good to me (LGTM)
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=LGTM

[sestinj]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.5.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• GitHub release

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[sestinj]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.27.1 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• GitHub release

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[sestinj]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.30.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• GitHub release

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀

[sestinj]

🎉 This PR is included in version 1.4.0 🎉

The release is available on:

• npm package (@latest dist-tag)
• GitHub release

Your semantic-release bot 📦🚀