Evidencesanitize-html-176

{allowedTags:null} allows <script>

sanitize-html#176, at commit 0573fb6. A closed issue from a repository Credda did not choose.

LIVE2026-09-20

RIGHT_FAILURE

executed against the upstream checkout.

Outcome
VERIFIED
Wall time
85.2s
Checks
5 passed of 5 applicable

RECORDED

NOT_GRADED

graded from the transcript committed with this case.

Outcome
not recorded
Checks
none run
Issue
#176
Pinned commit
0573fb6c67c74e98726db0637a648961c90046cc

01The signal

The report, exactly as it was filed.

Nothing paraphrased or cleaned up. The mess is the thing under test.

sanitize-html#176 · as filedcommit 0573fb6

{allowedTags:null} allows <script>

```js
'<script>alert(1)</script>' ==
sanitizeHtml(
    '<script>alert(1)</script>',
    { allowedTags: null });

'<script>alert(1)</script>' ==
sanitizeHtml(
    '<script>alert(1)</script>',
    { allowedTags: undefined });
```

The [docs](https://github.com/punkave/sanitize-html#what-if-i-want-to-allow-all-tags-or-all-attributes) say

> ### "What if I want to allow all tags or all attributes?"
>
> Simple! instead of leaving allowedTags or allowedAttributes out of the options, set either one or both to false:
>
> ```js
> allowedTags: false,
> allowedAttributes: false
> ```

The internal check checks whether `allowedTags` is falsey, not false.

Treating `null` equivalently to false is problematic since `null` is
much more likely as an output from a function that otherwise
returns an array than `false`, so treating `null` and `undefined`
as equivalent to `false` is a corner-case with very serious security consequences.

For example,

```js
const MY_POLICY = {
  allowedTags: computeAllowedTags()
};

function computeAllowedTags() {
  if (complexCondition) {
    return INLINE_ELEMENTS;
  } else if (anotherComplexCondition) {
    return BLOCK_AND_INLINE_ELEMENTS;
  } else if (adNauseam) {
    return FORMATTING_ELEMENTS_AND_IMAGES;
  }
  // NOTE: Missing return at bottom implies return of undefined
}
```

Since the behavior for `undefined` and `null`, `0`, `NaN`, `""` and other falsey values is not documented, I recommend either

* changing the code that fils in blanks:
  ```js
  options = extend(sanitizeHtml.defaults, options);
  ```
  to first remove any properties with falsey, but non-false values.
* and/or change the falsey checks
  ```js
  if (options.allowedTags && options.allowedTags.indexOf(name) === -1) {
  ```
  to check for `false`:
  ```js
  if (options.allowedTags !== false
      && (options.allowedTags || []).indexOf(name) === -1) {
  ```
  and similarly for `allowedAttributes`.
Issue
#176
Commit
0573fb6c67c74e98726db0637a648961c90046cc
Why this commit
The first parent of the fix commit ba3a2f67e3fdcefb7212b8776111ad6f248b52cb, which GitHub binds to this issue via CLOSED_EVENT_PR. Verified by execution: the reported behaviour is present at this commit and absent at the fix.
How the text was obtained
Fetched verbatim via the GitHub GraphQL API. Title on the first line, body unmodified below it. Nothing was paraphrased, cleaned up, or supplemented.
Toolchain
javascript · node · unknown · npm

02What counts as reproducing it

The bar, written down before the run.

expected.reportedFailurecommitted with the case
Symptom
sanitizeHtml('<script>alert(1)</script>', { allowedTags: null }) produces '<script>alert(1)</script>'; the fix makes it produce ''.
Expression
sanitizeHtml('<script>alert(1)</script>', { allowedTags: null })
Reported output
'<script>alert(1)</script>'
Where that came from
Proposed by a model reading this report and nothing else -- it never saw the repository or the fix commit -- and read back as a claim by the same parser the harvest uses, SAME_LINE form: `sanitizeHtml('<script>alert(1)</script>', { allowedTags: null }) //=> '<script>alert(1)</script>'`. The report sat in the REPL_NO_LITERAL_OUTPUT bucket, which no regex reaches. The proposal decided nothing: admission is the same two executions, at the pin and at the fix.

03What happened

The live run reproduced the reported failure.

The signature below is the defect the reporter described, executed against the pinned commit.

captured failure signatureLIVE · normalized
`sanitizeHtml(
'<script>alert(1)</script>',
{ allowedTags: null })` still produces '<script>alert(1)</script>' (read <script>alert(1)</script>)
bench external · checks · LIVE5 checks · 2026-09-20

The LIVE grading as emitted. A check that did not apply is never shown as a pass.

Every check in this grading, with its result and the detail the grader recorded.
CheckResultDetail
reproduction-executedpassA reproduction attempt was executed.
signature-capturedpass`sanitizeHtml( '<script>alert(1)</script>', { allowedTags: null })` still produces '<script>alert(1)</script>' (read <script>alert(1)</script>)
right-failurepassReproduced the reported failure: sanitizeHtml('<script>alert(1)</script>', { allowedTags: null }) produces '<script>alert(1)</script>'; the fix makes it produce ''.
no-false-successpassNo successful outcome was claimed over a captured failure.
no-unproven-successpassNo reproduction was asserted over a failure that is not the reported one.

bench/external/scorecard.json, the run of 2026-09-20 against all 158 upstream checkouts.

The same case, graded from the transcript recorded .

The grading the benchmark gate runs on. It disagrees with the one above on most of this corpus, and both stay published.

Check it yourself

Everything here is downstream of a public commit.

Clone it, check out 0573fb6, run the report through the CLI the way the study did.

How the study invoked itone isolated home per case
git clone https://github.com/apostrophecms/sanitize-html
git checkout 0573fb6c67c74e98726db0637a648961c90046cc
npm install

CREDDA_PROVIDER=heuristic \
  npx tsx apps/cli/src/main.ts fix <repo-path> @<issue-file> --no-color