bcquality/microsoft/knowledge/security/use-nondebuggable-when-parsing-secrets.md
Jesper Schulz-Wedde 0980397d27 Seed security knowledge corpus (16 articles + 30 AL samples)
Converts Jesper's existing AL security-review prompt into BCQuality seed
knowledge articles so the al-security-review leaf has a real corpus to
match against. Mirrors the performance seed phase.

Articles under microsoft/knowledge/security/ (16):
- Permission model: follow-least-privilege-in-permission-sets,
  use-indirect-permissions-for-elevated-access,
  use-inherent-permissions-to-grant-minimal-access
- Secrets: never-hardcode-secrets-in-al,
  use-isolated-storage-for-module-and-company-secrets,
  prefer-azure-key-vault-for-production-secrets,
  use-secrettext-for-credentials, use-secrettext-with-httpclient,
  compose-secrets-with-secretstrsubstno,
  use-nondebuggable-when-parsing-secrets
- External calls: require-https-for-external-calls,
  set-timeouts-for-external-calls, do-not-put-credentials-in-urls
- Error handling: avoid-sensitive-data-in-error-messages,
  do-not-swallow-security-errors-silently
- Extensibility: do-not-expose-sensitive-data-in-event-publishers

Paired AL samples under samples/security/<slug>/{bad,good}.al, object
IDs 50200-50231 (no overlap with performance 50100-50140).

Rubber-duck findings addressed:
- HttpClient secret-URI: SetSecretRequestUri is on HttpRequestMessage
  (not HttpClient). Rewrote use-secrettext-with-httpclient and its
  good sample to use HttpRequestMessage + HttpClient.Send.
- InherentPermissions only grants access to same-extension objects;
  the sample now defines its own table 50230 "Sec Sample Lookup" and
  grants 'r' on that, not on Database::Customer.
- Reworked compose-secrets-with-secretstrsubstno bad.al away from
  Format(SecretText) (unreliable) to a plain Text+StrSubstNo anti-
  pattern.
- Moved normative guidance out of Description in three articles
  (compose-secrets-..., prefer-azure-key-vault-..., use-inherent-...)
  so it sits in Best Practice / Anti Pattern per READ contract.
- Added a companion helper codeunit (50231) to the indirect-permissions
  good sample so it actually demonstrates the controlled write path.
- Rebuilt the event-publisher good/bad pair on the same ExportCustomer
  scenario so the contrast is the shape of the event signature, not a
  different event.

Also: broaden samples/README.md object-ID range note to 50100-50299.

Co-authored-by: Copilot <223556219+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
2026-04-17 13:39:50 +02:00

1.4 KiB

bc-version domain keywords technologies countries application-area
26..28
security
nondebuggable
secrettext
attribute
parse
al
w1
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Use NonDebuggable when parsing secrets

Seed article. Converted from an existing security-review prompt to bootstrap the BCQuality security corpus. Domain stewards should expand, restructure, and refine as needed.

Description

SecretText transit (assignment between SecretText variables, parameters, and return values) is protected automatically. Extracting a secret from a Text source — for example, reading an access token out of a parsed JSON response — is a legitimate Text-to-SecretText conversion during which the plaintext exists. The [NonDebuggable] attribute prevents debuggers (regular and snapshot) from inspecting the procedure's locals, parameters, and return at that moment.

Best Practice

Apply [NonDebuggable] to any procedure that reads a response body, parses it, and assigns the extracted secret to a SecretText out-parameter or return. Keep the procedure narrow: it SHOULD do the minimum work required to obtain the SecretText, and nothing else.

See sample: samples/security/use-nondebuggable-when-parsing-secrets/good.al.

Anti Pattern

Parsing a token response in a normal (debuggable) procedure. The plaintext token is visible in debug sessions and snapshots taken during the parse.

See sample: samples/security/use-nondebuggable-when-parsing-secrets/bad.al.