Jinja2 auto-escape disabled in spec_loader (CWE-79)

Summary

Static analysis (Snyk SAST) identified that jinja2.Template is called without enabling auto-escaping in the spec loader utility, which could allow cross-site scripting (XSS) if rendered output is served in a web context.

Affected File

st2common/st2common/util/spec_loader.py (line 48)

def generate_spec(module_name, spec_file):
    spec_template = pkg_resources.resource_string(module_name, spec_file)
    if not isinstance(spec_template, str):
        spec_template = spec_template.decode()
    spec_string = jinja2.Template(spec_template).render(**ARGUMENTS)
    return spec_string

jinja2.Template() is instantiated without the autoescape parameter, which defaults to False. If the ARGUMENTS dictionary contains user-controlled values, they will be rendered without escaping.

Impact

If the generated spec output is served through the StackStorm API or web UI without additional escaping, user-controlled values in ARGUMENTS could inject HTML or JavaScript. The actual exploitability depends on how the output of generate_spec is consumed downstream.

This is a lower-severity finding if the spec templates are only used for internal API specification generation with trusted input. However, defense-in-depth principles recommend enabling auto-escaping regardless.

Recommended Fix

Use jinja2.Environment with auto-escaping enabled, or pass autoescape=True if the output is HTML. If the output is not HTML (e.g., YAML or JSON specs), use jinja2.select_autoescape to apply context-appropriate escaping:

from jinja2 import Environment, select_autoescape

env = Environment(autoescape=select_autoescape())
template = env.from_string(spec_template)
spec_string = template.render(**ARGUMENTS)

Or, if auto-escaping is genuinely not needed for this context, add an explicit comment and a # nosec annotation explaining why.

References

• CWE-79: Improper Neutralization of Input During Web Page Generation
• Detected by: Snyk Code (SAST)

Start in st2common/st2common/util/spec_loader.py at generate_spec and inspect how its generated specification output is consumed. Determine whether the templates produce HTML, YAML, or JSON before choosing context-appropriate escaping. Done means user-controlled values are safely handled, or an explicit rationale and nosec annotation documents why escaping is unnecessary.