allocate-cve

name	allocate-cve
description	Walk a security team member through allocating a CVE for an <tracker> tracking issue. Prints the ASF Vulnogram allocation URL and a CVE-ready title (the issue title stripped of redundant `<vendor>: <product>:` (e.g. `Apache Airflow:`), `[ Security Report ]`, trailing version parens and similar noise), waits for the allocated CVE ID (allocation is PMC-gated — non-PMC triagers relay to a PMC member), and then updates the tracker in place: fills in the *CVE tool link* field, adds the `cve allocated` label, posts a collapsed status-change comment, and runs `generate-cve-json --attach` to embed the paste-ready JSON in the body. Finishes by handing off to the `sync-security-issue` skill to reconcile the rest of the tracker (milestone, assignee, reporter drafts, fix-PR state) now that the CVE landing is complete.
when_to_use	Invoke when a security team member says "allocate a CVE for NNN", "open the ASF CVE tool for NNN", "time to allocate NNN" — typically after the tracker has been assessed and the team has agreed the report is valid (process step 6). Not appropriate before the valid/invalid decision has been landed, nor for trackers that already carry a CVE ID in their *CVE tool link* body field.

allocate-cve

Walks a security team member through the CVE-allocation step of the handling process for a given <tracker> tracking issue. The work itself — filling in the Vulnogram allocation form at https://cveprocess.apache.org/allocatecve — is a human step; this skill prepares the clickable link + the exact title to paste into the form, and captures the allocated CVE back into the tracker in one coordinated pass so no step is forgotten.

Golden rule — propose before applying. Every write to the tracker (label add, body-field update, status-change comment, CVE-JSON regeneration) is a proposal the user must explicitly confirm. The only action the skill performs unilaterally is reading the tracker state and printing the allocation recipe for the user to click through.

Golden rule — only members of the project's PMC can allocate CVEs. The ASF Vulnogram form at https://cveprocess.apache.org/allocatecve requires ASF OAuth with PMC-level access on the adopting project. The full allocation mechanics (form-fill recipe, PMC-gated access, form fields, fatal mis-allocation, after-allocation wire-back) live in tools/vulnogram/allocation.md; the per-project URL templates live in <project-config>/project.md. This is not something the skill can work around — a non-PMC user who clicks Allocate sees the button grey out.

The current PMC roster lives on the project's ASF committee page (https://projects.apache.org/committee.html?<project>). Authoritative GitHub handles for the subset of PMC members who also sit on the security team are listed in <project-config>/release-trains.md (release-manager rosters + security-team roster) — use those as the authoritative source when a non-PMC triager needs to ping a PMC member to do the actual click-through.

If the user running this skill is not a PMC member, Step 3 will produce a clickable URL + a CVE-ready title that the user forwards to a PMC member (in the issue comments with an @-mention, on <security-list>, or over any other channel the team uses). Once the PMC member allocates and reports the allocated CVE-YYYY-NNNNN back, the non-PMC user can re-invoke the skill with the CVE ID as an override to resume from Step 4 — so the wiring-back of the allocated ID does not need to be done by the PMC member.

Golden rule — every <tracker> reference is a clickable link, per Golden rule 2 in sync-security-issue. The allocation recipe, the post-allocation proposal, and the status- change comment must all follow the link-form convention from AGENTS.md.

---

Inputs

• Issue number (required) — #242, 242, or a full https://github.com/<tracker>/issues/242 URL.
• Optional: CVE ID override — if the user has already allocated a CVE outside this flow and just wants the skill to wire it back into the tracker, accept a CVE-YYYY-NNNNN positional argument and skip straight to Step 4.

If the user does not supply a selector, ask for one before doing anything else.

---

Prerequisites

• gh CLI authenticated with collaborator access to <tracker> — the skill reads the tracker, adds labels, and posts the status-change comment via gh.
• uv installed — the embedded generate-cve-json regeneration step uses uv run.
• Gmail MCP connected — optional at this skill's scope, but required if the tracker carries a reporter thread that needs a status-update draft (Step 5).
• A PMC member on call — the Vulnogram allocation form is PMC-gated. If the user is not on the project's PMC, the skill still runs: it produces a relay message for a PMC member to click through instead of stopping.

See Prerequisites for running the agent skills in README.md for the overall setup (including the ponymail-mcp option on the horizon for non-personal-Gmail access).

---

Step 0 — Pre-flight check

Before touching the tracker, verify:

1. gh is authenticated — gh api repos/<tracker> --jq .name must return <tracker>. A 401/403/404 means the user needs gh auth login or collaborator access; stop.
2. uv is on the PATH — uv --version. Without it the Step 4 CVE-JSON regeneration would fail silently mid-flow; better to tell the user up front to install uv (one command: curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh).
3. Resolve the user's PMC status. First try to read it from config/user.md → role_flags.pmc_member (see config/README.md for the config layer explainer). If the file exists and the flag is set, use that value and surface it in the Step 0 recap ("loaded config for <handle> (PMC: yes)"). If the file is missing, the flag is unset, or the user did not copy the template, fall back to asking the PMC question up front (Step 3 asks it anyway, but prompting here gives the user a chance to abort if they did not realise they needed a PMC member to click through — it is friendlier than generating the relay recipe and then realising no PMC member is available to act on it).

If any check fails, stop with a clear message. Do not start filling in the tracker until all three are green — a partial allocation (label added, JSON regeneration skipped) is worse than no allocation at all.

---

Step 1 — Fetch the tracker state and run blocker checks

gh issue view <N> --repo <tracker> \
  --json number,title,state,body,labels,milestone,assignees,author

Blocker checks — if any fail, stop and surface the failure:

• Issue is open. Allocating a CVE for a closed tracker is almost always a mistake (the tracker may be closed as invalid, duplicate or already-announced). Surface as a blocker and ask the user what they intend.
• No CVE already allocated. Extract the CVE tool link body field; if it contains a CVE-\d{4}-\d+ token, abort with a message pointing at the existing CVE. Also abort if the issue already carries the cve allocated label.
• Not marked duplicate. If the duplicate label is set, the canonical tracker already carries the CVE — abort and point the user at the kept tracker.
• Scope label set. The CVE record's product / packageName fields depend on the scope (airflow → apache-airflow, providers → apache-airflow-providers-<name>, chart → apache-airflow-helm-chart). If no scope label is set, stop and ask the user to confirm the scope before allocating — it is much easier to set the right product at allocation time than to correct it after the Vulnogram record has a CVE ID.
• Not still needs triage. If needs triage is still on the tracker, the valid/invalid decision has not been landed yet — allocating now would be premature. Surface as a soft warning and ask for confirmation before proceeding.

---

Step 2 — Compute the CVE-ready title

The CVE record's title field is scoped to the product by the CNA container (e.g. Apache Airflow, Apache Airflow Providers Elasticsearch), so the Vulnogram title should be the bare description — no project prefix, no redundant version suffix, no reporter-added tag like [ Security Report ] or Security Issue.

The exact strip cascade is project-specific. For the currently active project, the rules and their rationale live in <project-config>/title-normalization.md. The Python implementation below mirrors the cascade defined there; if you are adapting this skill to a different project, replace the patterns with that project's rules (and update its title-normalization.md in lock-step).

Implementation recipe — keep it inline, do not create a separate Python project for this one-shot transform:

python3 - <<'PY'
import re, subprocess

t = subprocess.check_output(
    ["gh", "issue", "view", "<N>", "--repo", "<tracker>",
     "--json", "title", "--jq", ".title"],
    text=True,
).strip()

patterns_leading = [
    r"^[ \t]*\[ ?Security (?:Report|Issue|Vulnerability|Bug) ?\][ \t:|\-–—]*",
    r"^[ \t]*Security (?:Report|Issue|Vulnerability|Bug)[ \t:|\-–—]+",
    r"^[ \t]*Apache[ \t]+Airflow(?:[ \t]+v?\d+(?:\.\d+)*(?:\.x)?)?[ \t]*[:|\-–—]?[ \t]*",
    r"^[ \t]*Airflow(?:[ \t]+v?\d+(?:\.\d+)*(?:\.x)?)?[ \t]*[:|\-–—][ \t]*",
]
patterns_trailing = [
    r"[ \t]+in[ \t]+(?:Apache[ \t]+)?Airflow[ \t]*\.?$",
    r"[ \t]*\((?:Apache[ \t]+)?Airflow(?:[ \t]+v?\d+(?:\.\d+)*(?:\.x)?)?\)\.?[ \t]*$",
    r"[ \t]*\(GHSA-[\w-]+\)\.?[ \t]*$",
    r"[ \t]*\([^)]*split from #\d+[^)]*\)\.?[ \t]*$",
]

# Leading passes twice — strip order reveals nested tags.
for _ in range(2):
    for p in patterns_leading:
        t = re.sub(p, "", t, flags=re.IGNORECASE)
# Trailing passes until idempotent.
prev = None
while prev != t:
    prev = t
    for p in patterns_trailing:
        t = re.sub(p, "", t, flags=re.IGNORECASE)

t = re.sub(r"\s+", " ", t).strip().rstrip(".")
if t:
    t = t[0].upper() + t[1:]
print(t)
PY

Show the stripped title and the original title side by side in the proposal so the user can spot any over-stripping before pasting into Vulnogram. If the strip collapses the title to fewer than 3 words, surface that as a warning and propose a manual override — over-stripping is worse than leaving one redundant word in.

---

Step 3 — Print the allocation recipe

Compose a proposal block that carries everything the user needs in one copy-paste pass:

**Allocate a CVE for [<tracker>#<N>](https://github.com/<tracker>/issues/<N>).**

1. Open the ASF Vulnogram allocation form:
   <https://cveprocess.apache.org/allocatecve>
2. In the *Title* field, paste this:

```

3. Fill in the rest of the form from the tracker body — the key fields and where the skill reads them from:
   • Product: <product, derived from scope — see table below>
   • CWE: <body.CWE if set, else "_No response_ — set during allocation">`
   • Affected versions: <body.Affected versions>
   • Summary: <body.Short public summary for publish>
   • Reporter credits: <body.Reporter credited as>
4. Click Allocate. Vulnogram returns a CVE-YYYY-NNNNN ID.
5. Paste the allocated CVE ID back into this conversation — the skill will pick it up and update the tracker automatically.

Scope → Vulnogram product table: the adopting project's scope labels
and their CVE product / package-name mappings are defined in
[`<project-config>/scope-labels.md`](../../../<project-config>/scope-labels.md).
Read the label off the tracker and look up the matching product /
`packageName` there.

Note in the recipe which provider / chart / task-sdk is involved
when the scope is not bare `airflow`, so the user does not have to
re-infer it from the tracker body at paste time.

**Before printing the recipe**, ask the user *"are you an Airflow
PMC member?"* — a one-line yes/no question. This determines which
of two handoff paths the recipe describes:

- **User is a PMC member** — the recipe is self-service: click the
  URL, paste the stripped title, fill the form, hit *Allocate*,
  paste the allocated `CVE-YYYY-NNNNN` back into this conversation.
- **User is NOT a PMC member** — the ASF CVE tool will not let them
  submit the allocation. Reshape the recipe into a **relay message**
  the user posts as a comment on the tracker (``@``-mentioning one
  or more current PMC members) or sends on the
  `<security-list>` mail thread. **Keep it terse** — the
  PMC member already knows the allocation process, so the relay is a
  request, not a briefing, per the "Brevity: emails state facts, not
  context" section of [`AGENTS.md`](../../../AGENTS.md). The message
  contains only:
  - the clickable allocation URL,
  - the stripped title (ready for the Vulnogram form),
  - the derived scope / product / package-name block from Step 2,
  - one line: *"Paste the allocated `CVE-YYYY-NNNNN` back here when
    done."*

  Do not restate the vulnerability, the assessment history, or the
  handling process in the relay — the PMC member can read the
  tracker for any of that.

The relay message is just markdown — it does not go to Vulnogram
directly. The PMC member reads the message, clicks through, fills
the form, and replies with the allocated CVE. At that point the
original triager (or the PMC member) can re-invoke this skill with
the CVE ID as an override argument to resume from Step 4.

**Wait for the user** to report back a `CVE-\d{4}-\d+` token. Do
not proceed to Step 4 until that token has arrived. If the user
says they cannot allocate right now (no PMC member available, tool
down, etc.), stop and tell them the next invocation can be called
with the CVE ID as an override to resume from Step 4 without
re-doing Steps 1–3.

---

## Step 4 — Propose the tracker updates

Once the CVE ID is known, build a single combined proposal for the
user to confirm. Numbered items:

1. **Set the *CVE tool link* body field** to
   `https://cveprocess.apache.org/cve5/CVE-YYYY-NNNNN`. Patch only
   this one field; do not touch the rest of the body. Use the
   `sync-security-issue` skill's body-field-surgery recipe — read
   the full body, replace the *CVE tool link* field's value between
   its `### CVE tool link\n\n` header and the next `### ` or
   end-of-body, write back via `gh issue edit --body-file`.
2. **Add the `cve allocated` label.** `gh issue edit <N> --repo
   <tracker> --add-label "cve allocated"`.
3. **Append a `CVE allocated` entry to the tracker's
   status-rollup comment** — not a new top-level comment. The
   shared rollup spec (entry shape, summary format, upsert
   recipe, zero-whitespace rules) lives in
   [`tools/github/status-rollup.md`](../../../tools/github/status-rollup.md);
   re-read it before composing the entry. This skill emits the
   `CVE allocated (<CVE-YYYY-NNNNN>)` action label per the summary
   table there. If the tracker has no rollup comment yet (legacy
   tracker that pre-dates the convention), the recipe's Step 2b
   creates one; on the way, the skill must also fold any
   pre-existing legacy bot comments into the new rollup per the
   fold-legacy sub-step described in
   [`sync-security-issue`](../sync-security-issue/SKILL.md) —
   allocate-cve is a common first write after a long pause, so
   the legacy comments are often there.
4. **Regenerate the CVE JSON attachment** in the tracker body by
   running
   ```bash
   uv run --project <framework>/tools/vulnogram/generate-cve-json generate-cve-json <N> --attach

This is how the CVE record first gets seeded with the allocated ID. The remediation-developer credit (if any) comes from the tracker's Remediation developer body field — populated by the sync-security-issue skill from the linked PR's author the first time PR with the fix is set, and editable by hand thereafter. No CLI flag needed. 5. Draft a reporter status update — only when the real reporter's Gmail thread is known and the ball is in our court (see sync-security-issue Step 1c). Keep the draft short, per the "Brevity: emails state facts, not context" section of AGENTS.md: one sentence that the CVE has been allocated, one sentence that the advisory will be sent once the fix ships, the ASF CVE tool URL on its own line.

Before drafting, check for an existing pending draft on the inbound thread per the Detecting drafts that already exist on a thread section of tools/gmail/draft-backends.md — run both mcp__claude_ai_Gmail__list_drafts (catches claude_ai_mcp drafts in the global Drafts folder) and mcp__claude_ai_Gmail__get_thread on the inbound threadId (catches oauth_curl drafts attached by threadId that may not surface in the global Drafts folder). Re-ask the credit-preference question only if it has not yet been asked on the thread — never ping twice.

Never send. Always create a Gmail draft via the project's preferred drafting backend per the precedence rule in tools/gmail/draft-backends.md: probe for oauth_curl credentials first (default path ~/.config/apache-steward/gmail-oauth.json); use oauth_curl when present so the draft is threadId-attached, only fall back to claude_ai_mcp (subject-matched) when oauth credentials are not on disk. The tools.gmail.draft_backend config field acts as an explicit override only when set to claude_ai_mcp_force. Resolve the threadId from the tracker's security-thread body field (for Airflow, "Security mailing list thread"); subject is always Re: <root subject of the inbound report>, never fabricated. Surface which backend was used and which threading path the draft took (threadId-attached vs subject fallback) in the Step 5 proposal. See tools/gmail/threading.md for the full threading rule including the few cases where the skill should stop rather than fall back.

Rollup entry template

The entry is a single <details> block appended to the tracker's rollup comment (or — when the rollup does not exist yet — the first entry of a new rollup seeded with the marker from tools/github/status-rollup.md). Follow the zero-whitespace rules from that spec: no leading spaces inside the block, one blank line after <summary>…</summary>, one blank line before </details>.

<details><summary><YYYY-MM-DD> · @<author-handle> · CVE allocated (<CVE-YYYY-NNNNN>)</summary>

**Sync <YYYY-MM-DD> — CVE [`<CVE-YYYY-NNNNN>`](https://cveprocess.apache.org/cve5/<CVE-YYYY-NNNNN>) allocated for [<tracker>#<N>](https://github.com/<tracker>/issues/<N>).**

- Body *CVE tool link* field now points at the ASF CVE tool.
- Label `cve allocated` added.
- CVE JSON attachment embedded in the issue body — paste into [Vulnogram `#source`](https://cveprocess.apache.org/cve5/<CVE-YYYY-NNNNN>#source) to seed the record.

**Next:** <one-sentence next step — e.g. "design the fix (`fix-security-issue` skill)", or "release manager completes [process step 12](../../../README.md) once the  ">.



Allocated via the ASF Vulnogram form at ; the CVE ID is now the canonical reference in every downstream artifact (CVE JSON, advisory email, credit lines, cross-links). Scope  → product  →  .

Vulnogram paste-ready JSON was regenerated from the current body state (CWE , severity , affected ,  credits,  references) and embedded in the issue body. Re-run  after any body change to keep the JSON in sync.

Apply the Golden rule 2 self-check (clickable <tracker> references) to the entire entry before emitting.

Reporter-notification line options

End the visible part with exactly one of:

• "Reporter has been notified on the original mail thread." — when the draft was created in this sync.
• "No reporter notification needed (reporter is on the security team)." — for team-discovered issues.
• "Reporter notification still pending — see draft <draftId>." — when a draft was created but the user has not yet sent it.
• Omit the line entirely when no reporter notification is meaningful (e.g. an automated scanner report the team has decided to treat as non-actionable).

---

Step 5 — Confirm and apply sequentially

Present the full proposal — numbered items from Step 4, plus the rendered status-change comment body — and wait for confirmation. Confirmation forms mirror the other skills:

• all — apply every proposed item.
• 1,3,4 — apply selected items only.
• none / cancel — bail.
• Free-form edits — regenerate the affected item(s) and re-confirm.

After confirmation, apply sequentially (not in parallel) so partial failures stay legible:

1. gh issue edit <N> --repo <tracker> --body-file <tmp> — updated body with the CVE tool link field populated.
2. gh issue edit <N> --repo <tracker> --add-label "cve allocated".
3. Rollup-comment upsert per tools/github/status-rollup.md — append the new CVE allocated entry to the tracker's existing rollup (gh api -X PATCH repos/<tracker>/issues/comments/<id> --input …), or create the rollup (gh issue comment <N> --repo <tracker> --body-file <tmp>) if none exists yet.
4. uv run --project <framework>/tools/vulnogram/generate-cve-json generate-cve-json <N> --attach — embeds the CVE JSON in the body.
5. Create draft on the original thread (reporter notification, if applicable) via the project's configured drafting backend — see tools/gmail/draft-backends.md.

If any step fails, stop and ask the user how to proceed — do not guess. The body edit (step 1) is the only load-bearing step; if steps 2–5 fail, a subsequent sync-security-issue run will pick up the slack because it reads the CVE ID from the body.

---

Step 6 — Hand off to sync-security-issue

Right after the apply loop finishes (and before the recap in Step 7), invoke the sync-security-issue skill on the same tracker. The CVE allocation touches every axis the sync skill reconciles — labels, body fields, assignees, milestone, reporter-notification drafts, cross-referenced fix PRs — and running it immediately means:

• any stale needs triage label is cleared,
• the milestone is set (or surfaced as missing) now that the scope is known for real,
• the tracker's assignee is re-checked against the fix-PR author,
• the status-change comment from Step 4 and the embedded CVE JSON from Step 5 are cross-validated against the rest of the tracker,
• any drifted field the allocation revealed (e.g. a placeholder Reporter credited as that the Gmail thread already confirmed weeks ago) is surfaced as a concrete proposal.

Skipping this step leaves the tracker in a half-reconciled state that the next triage sweep has to clean up from scratch. Always run it.

How to invoke. The sync skill is prompt-driven, so this is a meta-step: tell the user "running sync-security-issue on # to reconcile the rest of the tracker" and then run the sync skill's Step 1 (Gather state) on the same issue. Sync produces its own numbered proposal with its own confirmation loop — follow it through; do not short-circuit.

Avoid re-allocation loops. Sync's Step 2c no-longer proposes allocating a CVE (the CVE tool link body field is now populated), so the flow cannot loop back into this skill. Sync's Step 5 will see the embedded CVE JSON block in the body and skip regeneration if nothing has changed — no duplicate PATCH, no duplicate timestamp bump.

When the handoff is not appropriate. Skip the sync handoff only if the user explicitly says they are about to close the tracker (e.g. allocated-then-decided-to-reject — a rare case, but possible), or if sync was already running when allocate-cve was invoked (nested invocation — sync's own Step 1 will detect the fresh CVE on its next pass anyway). In every other case, run it.

---

Step 7 — Recap

After the apply loop, print a short recap:

• The tracker as a clickable <tracker>#<N> link with a one-line summary of its new state (CVE tool link populated, cve allocated label set).
• The allocated CVE as a clickable CVE-YYYY-NNNNN link (before publication) per the "Linking CVEs" rule in AGENTS.md.
• The embedded CVE-JSON anchor (...#cve-json--paste-ready-for-<cve-slug>).
• The status-change comment's #issuecomment-<C> anchor.
• The Gmail draft ID (if one was created) plus a reminder that the user must open Gmail to review and send.
• The next handling-process step from the status-change comment's **Next:** line, repeated so the user does not have to scroll.

Apply the Golden rule 2 self-check to the entire recap text before presenting.

---

Hard rules

• Never allocate on the user's behalf. The Vulnogram form is a human step; the skill hands over the link and the stripped title, nothing more. Do not try to automate the form fill — the ASF CVE tool is ASF-OAuth-gated and agent automation of CNA allocation is explicitly out of scope.
• Only a project PMC member can allocate. The Vulnogram allocation button is PMC-gated. If the user running this skill is not a PMC member, the recipe is a relay message they post for a PMC member to act on, not a form they can fill themselves. Never tell a non-PMC user to "just click Allocate" — they will see the form load and the button grey out, wasting a round trip.
• Never fabricate a CVE ID. If the user pastes a malformed token (not matching CVE-\d{4}-\d{4,7}), reject it and ask for the correct form.
• Never allocate for a duplicate-labelled tracker. The canonical tracker carries the CVE.
• Never skip the scope check. Allocating a CVE against the wrong product (apache-airflow when the fix lives in apache-airflow-providers-smtp, for example) is a multi-hour cleanup involving Vulnogram and the release manager.
• Never send email. Only create drafts; the reporter- notification rule from AGENTS.md applies here the same way it applies to the other skills.

---

References

• README.md — the handling process, in particular step 6 (CVE allocation).
• AGENTS.md — confidentiality, linking conventions, reporter-supplied CVSS rule.
• sync-security-issue — mandatory follow-up to this skill (Step 6). Reconciles the tracker, the mail thread, and any fix PR after the CVE landing touches labels, body fields, and comments. Always runs; only skipped in the explicit edge cases listed in Step 6.
• generate-cve-json — Step 4 regenerates the CVE JSON attachment in the body so Vulnogram can be seeded via the #source tab paste.
• import-security-issue / deduplicate-security-issue — the two on-ramps that feed trackers into this skill; running dedupe before allocation is how we avoid burning two CVE IDs on the same root-cause bug.
• fix-security-issue — the follow-up after allocation: open the public fix PR with the CVE context kept internal.