vulnerability / NVI-00013865 / Revision 1
PraisonAI: `--api-key` flag on `praisonai serve` is not properly enforced
GitHub lists this reviewed advisory for PraisonAI. Published version ranges and source prerequisites are shown below; this is not an inspection of a visitor’s application.
This report has not inspected your inventory, configuration, deployed build, reachability or evidence. A catalog listing and a severity score do not establish exposure or compromise.
01 / Meaning
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02 / Applicability
The affected context
Affected versions, configuration prerequisites and known exclusions are public. Confirm each one against the deployed service.
PraisonAI
source listed< 4.6.58
## Summary `praisonai serve agents` and `praisonai serve unified` both accept `--api-key` for authentication. The flag is parsed but never wired into the FastAPI app — no middleware, no header check, nothing. The server runs wide open regardless of what key you set. Tested on 4.6.50 from PyPI. ## Affected versions - Confirmed on **4.6.50** (current PyPI, 2026-06-02) - Likely since **4.6.34** when the serve subsystem shipped - File: `src/praisonai/praisonai/cli/features/serve.py` ## What happens The CLI defines `--api-key` in the arg spec (`serve.py:199`) and passes the parsed value into `_create_agents_app(config)`. But that function never reads `config["api_key"]`. The FastAPI app gets created with no auth at all. Same thing in `_create_unified_app`. The help text says `--api-key API key for authentication`, so this isn't ambiguous — it's supposed to protect the server. It just doesn't. ``` $ grep -n "api_key" src/praisonai/praisonai/cli/features/serve.py 107: --api-key API key for authentication 199: "api_key": {"default": None}, 847: "api_key": {"default": None}, ``` ## Endpoints exposed without auth - `POST /agents` — runs the full
03 / Response
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- investigate
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04 / Limits
What this report cannot establish
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05 / Provenance
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- GHSA-pvxx-r596-f5qj ↗
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- Revision 1 ·
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