mcp-vosdroits: Instructions file for GitHub Copilot

Security Best Practices

Input Validation

• Validate all external inputs (tool parameters, resource URIs)
• Use strong typing to prevent invalid states
• Sanitize user-provided URLs and queries
• Validate data formats (emails, URLs, etc.)
• Set reasonable limits on input sizes

HTTP Security

Client Configuration

• Always use HTTPS for external API calls
• Set reasonable timeouts to prevent hanging requests
• Validate SSL/TLS certificates
• Handle redirects carefully

Rate Limiting

• Implement rate limiting for external API calls
• Handle 429 (Too Many Requests) responses gracefully
• Use exponential backoff for retries

Error Handling

• Don't expose sensitive information in error messages
• Log errors securely without leaking secrets
• Return generic error messages to clients
• Log detailed errors for debugging

Secrets Management

• Never hardcode secrets in source code
• Use environment variables for configuration
• Rotate secrets regularly
• Don't log sensitive information
• Use secret management services when available

Data Privacy

• Don't log personally identifiable information (PII)
• Sanitize logs before storage
• Respect user privacy in caching
• Follow data retention policies

Dependency Security

• Regularly update dependencies
• Use go mod tidy to remove unused dependencies
• Scan for known vulnerabilities
• Pin dependency versions in production

Cryptography

• Use Go's standard library crypto packages
• Don't implement custom cryptography
• Use crypto/rand for random number generation
• Use TLS for network communication

Context Security

• Set timeouts on contexts to prevent resource exhaustion
• Cancel contexts when operations complete
• Don't store sensitive data in context values

Common Vulnerabilities

SQL Injection

Not applicable for this project, but if using databases, always use parameterized queries.

Path Traversal

• Validate file paths from user input
• Use filepath.Clean to sanitize paths
• Restrict file access to allowed directories