Beyond the Payload: How User Invocation Shapes Coding Agent Vulnerability to Repository Poisoning
Repository-poisoning attacks on AI coding agents succeed or fail depending on how developers invoke the agent — a finding that complicates supply-chain defences built around static payload analysis alone.
Summary written by editorial AI · Source link below
arXiv:2608.30686v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Coding agents are increasingly used for software engineering tasks, including bootstrapping projects from third-party repositories whose integrity cannot be assumed. Prior work on repository poisoning largely focuses on attacker-controlled injection and disguise, but developers also shape risk through everyday invocation choices: what task to delegate, how to phrase the request, and which skills or rules to supply. We term these user-side choices
Editorial Analysis
Enterprises allowing AI agents to bootstrap from third-party repos face a threat surface shaped not just by malicious payloads but by how developers phrase their prompts.
Restrict AI coding agents to vetted repository sources and monitor agent behaviour for unexpected file modifications during project bootstrapping.
How developers invoke AI coding tools determines whether poisoned repositories succeed — a new supply-chain risk dimension.
Forward-looking interpretation drafted by editorial AI under human review — not a reproduction of the source. See methodology.
External link — opens at arXiv Crypto & Security in a new tab.
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