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Authenticate the signature inventory to GHCR so the two private packages resolve #3372

Closed

Description

@devantler

🤖 Generated by the Agentic Engineer

Evidence

The signature inventory shipped in #3371 runs end to end against the live fleet and reports:

rules=3 images_enumerated=128 matched=5 PASS=3 FAIL=0 UNKNOWN=2

The two UNKNOWNs are ascoachingogvaner and wedding-app. Both are private GHCR packages: an
anonymous read of the image manifest itself returns 401, so cosign's DENIED is an
authorization result and says nothing about whether a signature exists. The tool records that as
UNKNOWN by design — inventing a blast radius from an unreadable package would be exactly the
guess #3101 exists to stop.

Problem and audience

Anyone deciding whether image verification is safe to activate. #3334 closes on "a re-run reports
zero failures and zero UNKNOWNs"
, so those two packages are the only thing standing between the
current measurement and that condition. They are not a design problem — they are a credential the
inventory job does not yet have.

Expected outcome

The inventory-first-party-image-signatures job in
.github/workflows/validate-image-verifier-liveness.yaml authenticates to GHCR with the existing
pull credential, so both private packages resolve to a definite PASS or FAIL.

The mechanism already exists and is used elsewhere in this repository — scripts/ghcr-auth-lib.sh,
consumed by ci.yaml and scripts/run-ksail-prod-with-pull-auth.sh. This is an additive use of it,
not new design.

Acceptance criteria

  • The inventory job obtains the GHCR pull credential through scripts/ghcr-auth-lib.sh rather
    than a new secret path, and the credential never reaches the job log.
  • cosign verify in the tool uses that credential (registry auth), so a private first-party
    package is readable.
  • A run against prod reports zero UNKNOWNs. Any image that then reports FAIL is a real
    finding and is signed or scoped under Sign or scope every first-party image that a verifier would refuse, before enforcement goes live #3334's third criterion.
  • A missing or invalid credential still yields UNKNOWN and a non-zero exit — never a pass. The
    hermetic suite covers that arm.

Why this is separate

#3371 delivers the enumeration, the rule matching, the PASS/FAIL/UNKNOWN discipline and the CI
wiring, and its measurement is what identified this gap. Resolving it needs a credential decision in
a workflow rather than a change to the tool, and it is the last step before #3334 can close.

Part of #3334.

Activity

  1. moved this to 📥 Backlog in 🌊 Project Boardon Aug 25, 2026
  2. self-assigned this
    on Aug 25, 2026
  3. added a commit that references this issue on Aug 25, 2026
  4. devantler commented on Sep 4, 2026

    @devantler
    ContributorAuthor

    🤖 Generated by the Agentic Engineer

    Closed by observation — every acceptance criterion is already met on main

    #3374 (merged 2026-08-26, e7ce25e7) added the 🔑 Stage the GHCR pull credential step to the inventory-first-party-image-signatures job: it sources scripts/ghcr-auth-lib.sh, decrypts the cluster's own pull credential into a 0700 DOCKER_CONFIG under RUNNER_TEMP, and the inventory's cosign verify reads the registry through it. It referenced this issue as Part of, so nothing closed it.

    AC Evidence
    credential via ghcr-auth-lib.sh, never in the log the staging step above; the value is written under umask 077 and only the directory path reaches GITHUB_ENV
    cosign verify uses it the two private packages resolved to a definite result in the run below
    a prod run reports zero UNKNOWNs workflow_dispatch run 33234731678 (2026-08-29T04:49Z, success): rules=4 images_enumerated=122 matched=3 PASS=3 FAIL=0 UNKNOWN=0 — read from the job log, not inferred
    a missing or broken credential still yields UNKNOWN and non-zero #3374's measured table: with a deliberately broken credential — 3 unknown, 0 verified; the hermetic suite covers that arm

    No FAIL appeared, so there is nothing to sign or scope under #3334's third criterion from this issue. #3334 remains the parent that decides whether enforcement is switched on.

  5. moved this from 📥 Backlog to ✅ Done in 🌊 Project Boardon Sep 4, 2026
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