DavidAnson / DavidAnson/markdownlint-cli2

No option to disable following symlinks when resolving globs

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Dominant language
JavaScript
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Forks
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Merged PRs (30d)
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Description

Description

markdownlint-cli2 resolves file globs via globby, and the internal
globbyOptions object (in markdownlint-cli2.mjs) is hard-coded without a
followSymbolicLinks key, so globby's default (true) always applies.
There's no config option (checked markdownlint-cli2-config-schema.json)
or CLI flag to turn this off.

This is surprising when a project's config lives in a subdirectory that
contains symlinks pointing to files outside that subdirectory (a common
pattern for de-duplicating shared docs across a monorepo). Running
--fix scoped to that subdirectory's glob still follows the symlinks and
writes the fixes through them — silently modifying files outside the
directory the invocation was scoped to, and outside that config's
intended authority.

Minimal reproduction

repo/
├── shared/
│   └── standard.md          # owned by a different part of the repo
└── project/
    ├── .markdownlint-cli2.yaml
    └── docs/
        └── ref.md -> ../../shared/standard.md   # symlink
cd repo/project
markdownlint-cli2 --fix "**/*.md"

If standard.md has a fixable violation (e.g. a missing fenced-code
language, a duplicate blank line), the fix is written to
repo/shared/standard.md through the symlink — even though the
invocation's cwd and glob were scoped entirely to repo/project/.

Expected

Either:

  • A documented way to disable symlink-following for glob resolution
    (e.g. exposing followSymbolicLinks: false to globby via a config
    or CLI option), or
  • At minimum, a note in the README calling out that glob resolution
    follows symlinks by default and can write outside the invocation's
    directory scope, since this isn't obvious from the ignores/globs
    documentation.

Workaround

Explicitly list every such symlink under ignores in
.markdownlint-cli2.yaml. This works but doesn't scale (has to be kept
in sync by hand with every new symlink) and isn't discoverable — we only
found the issue after --fix had already written into files outside our
directory.

Environment

  • markdownlint-cli2: 0.23.2
  • markdownlint: 0.41.1

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start in markdownlint-cli2.mjs by inspecting the hard-coded globbyOptions and how configuration and CLI options are handled, then check markdownlint-cli2-config-schema.json and the README. Done means providing a documented way to disable symlink following, or clearly documenting the default behavior and its effects when using --fix.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, nodejs
Domain
cli
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
68/100

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