Layr-Labs / Layr-Labs/d-inference

X5: implement the boot-time confidential-VM assertion

Open
#1,083 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub
area:coordinator security
Dominant language
Go
Stars
522
Forks
113
Avg merge
17h 26m
Merged PRs (30d)
111

Description

The coordinator asserts in its own documentation that it decrypts request bodies inside confidential-VM memory, but **nothing in the process verifies this at runtime**. `grep -rni confidential coordinator --include=*.go` returns only comments.

The consequence, stated in the 2026-07-17 migration runbook that first raised this: omitting the confidential-compute flag silently produces a non-confidential VM where the host can read decrypted prompts, with zero error. That runbook listed a boot-time assertion as a Phase-1 blocker; it was never implemented.

### Work
- At startup, verify the process is running on a Confidential VM and **refuse to serve** if not
- Fail closed and loudly — a misconfigured host must not come up serving traffic
- Consider an operator-visible surface (health payload or telemetry) so the property is observable, not just asserted at boot
- Tests that cover both the confidential and non-confidential cases without needing a real CVM in CI

Build and test it in dev, where a false negative costs nothing. It benefits production directly.

### Sequencing
Deliberately **after** the Phase A exit criteria, so a failing assertion cannot block the environment coming up.

### Acceptance criteria
- [ ] Coordinator refuses to start on a non-confidential host
- [ ] Verified positively on the dev Confidential VM
- [ ] Documented in the encryption architecture page

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

Research direction

Start in the coordinator Go process using `grep -rni confidential coordinator --include=*.go`, then trace its startup path and current health or telemetry surface. Read the 2026-07-17 migration runbook and encryption architecture page for the intended requirement. Done means startup fails closed on non-confidential hosts, both host cases are tested without a real CVM, and the behavior is documented and verified in the dev Confidential VM.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
go
Domain
backend, security
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
48/100

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