review-core-infra

name

review-core-infra

description

PRs touching inference/core/ foundation — inference/core/env.py, inference/core/version.py, inference/core/entities/**, inference/core/utils/** (image_utils.py, requests.py, environment.py), inference/core/roboflow_api.py, exceptions.py, logger.py, nms.py. Diff signals: new os.getenv(...), __version__, build_roboflow_api_headers, api_key_safe_raise_for_status, load_image_from_url, WHITELISTED/BLACKLISTED_DESTINATIONS_FOR_URL_INPUT, *DC / _is_*_dc_to_dict.

Reviewing core-infra changes

Scope

The process-wide foundation under inference/core/ that every server, CLI, and model path imports at load time:

• inference/core/env.py — env-var declarations / defaults
• inference/core/version.py — the single __version__ const
• inference/core/entities/** — request/response Pydantic models + slotted dataclass (*DC) siblings
• inference/core/utils/** — especially image_utils.py, requests.py, environment.py, hash.py
• inference/core/roboflow_api.py — Roboflow platform HTTP client + workflow-spec cache
• inference/core/exceptions.py, inference/core/logger.py, inference/core/nms.py

OUT of scope (other skills own these): Workflows blocks/Execution Engine (inference/core/workflows/**), model implementations (inference/models/**), the inference_models package, HTTP route handlers in inference/core/interfaces/http/** (touched here only when an env flag rewires middleware, e.g. #1205/#2417).

Review checklist

Severity tags: BLOCK = fix before merge; FLAG = raise it; NIT = optional.

1. BLOCK — URL/image input (image_utils.py): all SSRF layers intact and in order (input-enabled → backslash-in-netloc reject → prepare+re-parse → scheme → FQDN → whitelist → blacklist). Any relaxation adds a matching ALLOW_* opt-in flag defaulting to the safe value. See SSRF hardening.
2. BLOCK — Default change: does any env.py default flip change production behavior/backend? If so it must be justified, CI-pinned, and Docker-ENV-consistent (#2136). Otherwise block.
3. BLOCK — Roboflow API calls: every new/edited request uses build_roboflow_api_headers(...) (no bare headers={}) and api_key_safe_raise_for_status(...) (no raw .raise_for_status().
4. BLOCK — Cache/registry: new cache reads degrade gracefully — wrapped, fall back to the API on outage, do not fail the request (#2387).
5. BLOCK — Entities: new fields are defaulted AND mirrored across the Pydantic model + *DC dataclass + _is_*_dc_to_dict mapper; serialized aliases (class_name → "class") preserved (#2484).
6. BLOCK — Ordering: any "mutate then persist/cache" sequence mutates BEFORE the cache write (#966).
7. FLAG — Version: only when the diff itself touches inference/core/version.py — it must change exactly the one const (no imports/side effects), monotonically (except deliberate reverts, #2136). Never require a bump on a PR that doesn't touch it.
8. FLAG — New env var: typed coercion + sensible default, placed near related vars, AND documented (see Env docs).
9. FLAG — Exceptions: correct base class (RoboflowAPIRequestError for API failures; standalone Exception only for cross-cutting like CacheUnavailableError), docstring-with-Attributes style.
10. FLAG — Logging: log-event output stays JSON-serializable; no raw tracebacks / non-serializable objects into the event dict (#1225, #1340). 10a. BLOCK — Credential-bearing log interpolation: any log line in the camera/producer stack (inference/core/interfaces/camera/**) interpolating a source reference, GStreamer launch string, or exception repr routes through sanitize_source_reference / redact_credentials_in_text (camera/source_reference_sanitizer.py) — raw interpolation leaked credentialed rtsp://user:password@... URLs at INFO and default WARNING level before the 2026-08 sweep; exception reprs embed the full launch string, so they need the text redactor too. Convention: producer selection logs positively at INFO, fallbacks at WARNING — both sanitized.
11. FLAG — Tests: matching tests/inference/unit_tests/core/** added/updated; security fixes assert the bypass is rejected AND that requests.get is NOT called for a rejected URL (#2500, #2501).
12. NIT — User-facing strings: package names / commands are correct (inference, not roboflow-inference, #154); model-id slugs use the platform's exact underscores-vs-hyphens (#1343).

Not blocking

• No PR is required to bump version.py — inference releases are versioned separately; review the bump only when the diff includes one.
• inference_models has its own version+changelog — its pyproject.toml version is a separate concern.
• New env vars that are internal/experimental and off-by-default do not need a security-doc row (environmental_variables.md is enough).
• Don't demand a Docker-ENV row for a flag that is identical across all images.

Standards

• New env var = os.getenv + typed coercion + sensible default, added next to related vars. Bools via str2bool, ints via int(...), CSV via set(x.split(",")); complex coercion via safe_env_to_type. Defaults define production behavior on every deployment/Docker image, so a default change is a behavior change for all users. Examples: retry knobs TRANSIENT_ROBOFLOW_API_ERRORS* (#1004), MD5_VERIFICATION_ENABLED (#1492), QWEN_2_5_ENABLED (#1140), ALLOW_LOADING_IMAGES_FROM_LOCAL_FILESYSTEM (#957).
• version.py holds exactly one truth: __version__. It is executed as a script by every Docker build workflow (python ./inference/core/version.py → image tag). Do not add imports/side effects.
• Model-enablement flags default True and gate the import site, so a missing optional dependency degrades to a warning, not a crash — the flag wraps the try: from inference.models import ... (#1140 QWEN, #1389 Jetson VLM flags).
• Backward compatibility for defaults is load-bearing. Flipping a default that changes which backend/feature is active is a release-blocking decision — #2136 reverted the USE_INFERENCE_MODELS default flip and pinned the CI job with an explicit USE_INFERENCE_MODELS=False. Default-backend flips must be gated, CI-pinned, and reversible.
• All Roboflow API HTTP calls go through build_roboflow_api_headers(...) (injects ROBOFLOW_API_EXTRA_HEADERS, service secrets) — never a bare headers={...} (#932 retrofitted every call site; #2219 adds X-Roboflow-Internal-Service-Secret via the same builder).
• Never call response.raise_for_status() directly — use api_key_safe_raise_for_status(response=...) (or api_key_safe_raise_for_status_aiohttp for aiohttp) so API keys in URLs are redacted from exceptions/logs (#140 established the redaction). Grep diffs for raw .raise_for_status(.
• Cache/registry access degrades gracefully. Ephemeral (Redis/Dragonfly) cache failures must fall back to the API, not fail the request — wrap in _try_* helpers catching CacheUnavailableError (#2387 propagated an ephemeral-cache outage into a failed workflow-spec fetch).
• New exceptions subclass the right base (RoboflowAPIRequestError for API failures, e.g. RoboflowAPITimeoutError #1004; standalone Exception only for genuinely cross-cutting ones like CacheUnavailableError #2387). Keep the docstring-with-Attributes style used throughout exceptions.py.
• Entity additions are additive & defaulted. New fields carry a default so existing callers/serialization don't break, and are mirrored in BOTH the Pydantic model AND its *DC sibling AND the _is_*_dc_to_dict mapper — which is documented "Bit-equivalent to ...model_dump(by_alias=True, exclude_none=True)". Field name vs. serialized alias (class_name → "class") matters (#2484 added mask_format: Literal["polygon"] = "polygon" to model, dataclass, dict mapper, and tests).
• Structured logging stays JSON-serializable — no raw tracebacks or non-serializable objects into the log event dict; use the structlog_exception_formatter shape (#1225, #1340 emitted non-JSON output that broke log parsing).
• Value mutation precedes caching. Any value written to cache must be fully mutated first (#966 wrote the internal workflow id into the spec AFTER it was cached, so cached copies lacked the id).
• Runtime NVIDIA libraries need loader-cache resolution, not env-only. Two recurring classes from the GPU/media images: (1) GStreamer plugins dlopen UNVERSIONED sonames (libnvrtc.so, libnvjpeg.so) that CUDA runtime base images don't ship — the fallback keyed on the HOST driver's CUDA major masks the gap on same-major machines and breaks on newer drivers; the fix pattern is an unversioned symlink + build-time ctypes.CDLL assertion in the Dockerfile. (2) Libraries in custom prefixes (/opt/gstreamer etc.) reachable only via the image's LD_LIBRARY_PATH die in Kubernetes, which REPLACES that variable (NVIDIA device-plugin injection) — new runtime lib prefixes need an /etc/ld.so.conf.d/ entry + ldconfig, not just the ENV line.
• NMS mask/indexing ops preserve the size-1 case. Don't squeeze away the batch/element dimension for single-detection batches — nms.py guards this with np.atleast_1d(...) (#535 a bare .squeeze() collapsed a single-detection batch to 0-d and broke filtering).
• SSRF hardening — keep ALL layers, in order. load_image_from_url is defense-in-depth, gated on ALLOW_URL_INPUT. It does NOT do a DNS public-IP resolution check and does NOT set allow_redirects=False — do not claim it does. The actual layers, each raising on violation:
  1. _ensure_url_input_allowed() — enforces ALLOW_URL_INPUT.
  2. Reject if the raw parsed netloc contains a backslash \ (#2500 allowlist bypass via \@allowed.com in userinfo).
  3. Build requests.Request(...).prepare() and re-parse the prepared URL (normalizes before any check runs).
  4. _ensure_resource_schema_allowed(scheme) — https only unless ALLOW_NON_HTTPS_URL_INPUT.
  5. Extract FQDN from parsed_url.hostname (not raw netloc) via tldextract; _ensure_resource_fqdn_allowed rejects bare-IP / no-FQDN unless ALLOW_URL_INPUT_WITHOUT_FQDN.
  6. _ensure_location_matches_destination_whitelist / _ensure_location_matches_destination_blacklist against WHITELISTED_DESTINATIONS_FOR_URL_INPUT / BLACKLISTED_DESTINATIONS_FOR_URL_INPUT (None = no restriction).
  7. ALLOW_LOADING_IMAGES_FROM_LOCAL_FILESYSTEM gates the local-fs loader path (#957). Removing, reordering, or short-circuiting any layer is a BLOCK.

Required companions

• Versioning: no version.py bump is required — release chore PRs (#2505, #2396, #1838) handle that separately. When the diff does bump it, apply checklist item 7.
• Env docs: any new/renamed env var → row in docs/server_configuration/environmental_variables.md; input/security flags also in docs/server_configuration/accepted_input_formats.md (#957, #1004). Security-posture changes → docs/install/security.md (#2417).
• Tests: changes to image_utils.py, roboflow_api.py, entities/**, nms.py, logger.py, environment.py require unit tests under the matching tests/inference/unit_tests/core/** subdir. Security fixes assert rejection + that requests.get is NOT called for the rejected URL (#2500, #2501). Entity changes extend tests/inference/unit_tests/core/entities/** (#2484).
• CI env parity: if a default flips or a flag changes backend selection, the relevant CI workflow pins the flag so the matrix stays deterministic (#2136 pinned USE_INFERENCE_MODELS=False).
• Docker image ENV parity: capability/security flags that must differ per image are set in the relevant docker/dockerfiles/Dockerfile.* (#957 lambda, #1389 Jetson) — verify the flag is disabled where it should be (lambda/serverless lock-down).

Key files & entry points

• inference/core/env.py — env declarations & defaults; SSRF flags ALLOW_URL_INPUT, ALLOW_NON_HTTPS_URL_INPUT, ALLOW_URL_INPUT_WITHOUT_FQDN, WHITELISTED_DESTINATIONS_FOR_URL_INPUT, BLACKLISTED_DESTINATIONS_FOR_URL_INPUT, ALLOW_LOADING_IMAGES_FROM_LOCAL_FILESYSTEM
• inference/core/version.py — __version__ (build tag source)
• inference/core/roboflow_api.py — build_roboflow_api_headers, get_workflow_specification, _try_retrieve_workflow_specification_from_ephemeral_cache / _try_cache_workflow_specification_in_ephemeral_cache, _get_from_url
• inference/core/utils/image_utils.py — load_image_from_url, _ensure_url_input_allowed, _ensure_resource_schema_allowed, _ensure_resource_fqdn_allowed, _ensure_location_matches_destination_whitelist / _blacklist
• inference/core/utils/requests.py — api_key_safe_raise_for_status, api_key_safe_raise_for_status_aiohttp
• inference/core/utils/environment.py — str2bool, safe_env_to_type
• requests/inference.py — Pydantic + *DC siblings, _is_pred_dc_to_dict / _is_response_dc_to_dict
• inference/core/exceptions.py, inference/core/logger.py (structlog_exception_formatter), inference/core/nms.py
• Docs: docs/server_configuration/environmental_variables.md, accepted_input_formats.md, docs/install/security.md
• Tests: tests/inference/unit_tests/core/**

Reference PRs

• #2501 — SSRF via redirect-after-FQDN (security)
• #2500 — allowlist bypass via backslash in URL userinfo (security)
• #2417 — local-deployment security env flags + docs/install/security.md (security/docs)
• #957 — ALLOW_LOADING_IMAGES_FROM_LOCAL_FILESYSTEM gate + docker/docs (security)
• #2387 — graceful fallback on ephemeral cache failure; CacheUnavailableError + _try_* (bugfix)
• #2484 — additive entity field mirrored across model/*DC/dict-mapper/tests (feature)
• #2219 — internal-service-secret header via build_roboflow_api_headers (feature)
• #1004 — RF API retry knobs (env + exceptions + docs) (feature)
• #932 — env-injectable headers; centralized build_roboflow_api_headers (feature)
• #966 — mutate-before-cache ordering fix for workflow id (bugfix)
• #535 — NMS .squeeze() broke single-detection batches (bugfix)
• #2136 — revert default-backend flip; version down-bump + CI pin (revert)
• #1205 — correlation-id env typo + single API_LOGGING_ENABLED flag (feature/bugfix)
• #1340 — log formatter emitted non-JSON, broke log parsing (bugfix)
• #154 — wrong package name in user-facing upgrade message (bugfix)

Related topic skills

When the PR also exhibits these cross-cutting concerns, load the matching topic skill too (see each skill's description for the trigger):

• review-topic-backward-compat-and-versioning
• review-topic-concurrency-and-resource-safety
• review-topic-auth-and-tenant-security
• review-topic-input-boundary-security (owns the SSRF / URL-input boundary rule)
• review-topic-external-contract-and-silent-fallback
• review-topic-test-hygiene