nanocoai/nanoclaw · warning

inbox-safety: failed to resolve inbox dir

Error message

inbox-safety: failed to resolve inbox dir

What it means

Resolving/realpath-ing an intended inbox directory threw — e.g. a parent disappeared mid-resolution (ENOENT on realpath), permission denied, or a symlink loop. The operation returns null and the caller treats the inbox path as unusable (attachment extraction is skipped).

Source

Thrown at src/inbox-safety.ts:80

        return null;
      }
    } catch {
      // Does not exist yet — fine, mkdir below creates it.
    }
  }

  fs.mkdirSync(inboxDir, { recursive: true });

  try {
    const realInboxDir = fs.realpathSync(inboxDir);
    const realInboxRoot = fs.realpathSync(inboxRoot);
    if (!isPathInside(realInboxRoot, realInboxDir)) {
      log.warn('inbox-safety: inbox dir escaped inbox root', { ...context, inboxDir });
      return null;
    }
    return realInboxDir;
  } catch (err) {
    log.warn('inbox-safety: failed to resolve inbox dir', { ...context, inboxDir, err });
    return null;
  }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to 294ef2aee8)

Solutions

1. Check the inboxDir in the log exists and all parents are traversable (x bit)
2. Avoid symlinks in the data/ tree
3. Retry the attachment send — transient races usually clear

import fs from 'node:fs';
const p = fs.realpathSync(inboxDir); // pre-validate before extracting attachments
if (!p.startsWith(realInboxRoot)) abort();

function isSafeInboxDir(dir: string, root: string): boolean {
  try { return fs.realpathSync(dir).startsWith(fs.realpathSync(root) + '/'); } catch { return false; }
}

const safe = ensureContainedInboxDir(dir); if (!safe) skipAttachmentExtraction();

When it happens

Trigger: ensureContainedInboxDir's fs.realpath calls throw on a missing/renamed session dir, an unreadable parent, or a symlinked path segment.

Common situations: Session directory recreated concurrently (container restart race), permission changes on data/v2-sessions, or symlinked data dirs.

Related errors

• agent-route: failed to inspect source outbox dir
• inbox-safety: rejecting unsafe inbox path
• inbox-safety: inbox dir escaped inbox root
• Unknown provider: ${name}. Registered: ${known}
• engage_mode '${w.engage_mode}' can never engage on channel '

AI-assisted analysis of nanocoai/nanoclaw@294ef2aee8 (2026-08-28). Data as JSON: /api/errors/3c4d4b1d014bc1e1. Report an issue: GitHub.