What causes "Refusing non-allowlisted public protocol eval path ${file}" in paperclipai/paperclip?

Inspect the named file; if it is not meant to be public, delete it from the report directory and re-run.

paperclipai/paperclip · error · Error

Refusing non-allowlisted public protocol eval path ${file}

Error message

Refusing non-allowlisted public protocol eval path ${file}

What it means

Every collected file path must match the allowlist defined by isPublicProtocolEvalPath (e.g. index.html, campaign.json, attempts/*/index.html, viewer/ assets). Any file outside that allowlist aborts publication naming the offending relative path, preventing unintended files from being exposed publicly.

Source

Thrown at packages/paperclip-runner/scripts/publish-runner-protocol-eval-history.mjs:157

export async function validatePublicProtocolEvalReport(
  reportRoot,
  { viewerRoot } = {},
) {
  const root = resolve(reportRoot);
  const files = await relativeFiles(root);
  const hasChat = files.some((file) =>
    /^attempts\/[^/]+\/index\.html$/.test(file),
  );
  const viewer = hasChat ? await trustedViewerFiles(viewerRoot) : null;
  if (!files.includes("index.html") || !files.includes("campaign.json")) {
    throw new Error(
      "Public protocol eval report requires index.html and campaign.json",
    );
  }
  for (const file of files) {
    if (!isPublicProtocolEvalPath(file)) {
      throw new Error(
        `Refusing non-allowlisted public protocol eval path ${file}`,
      );
    }
    const absolute = resolve(root, ...file.split("/"));
    const metadata = await stat(absolute);
    if (metadata.size === 0 || metadata.size > 12 * 1024 * 1024) {
      throw new Error(
        `Public protocol eval file exceeds its size boundary: ${file}`,
      );
    }
    if (file.startsWith("viewer/")) {
      const expected = viewer?.files.get(file);
      if (!expected || !expected.equals(await readFile(absolute)))
        throw new Error(
          `Public viewer asset differs from trusted build: ${file}`,
        );
      continue;
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 01ad858492)

Solutions

Inspect the named file; if it is not meant to be public, delete it from the report directory and re-run.
If the file is legitimately part of the report, update isPublicProtocolEvalPath in the script to allowlist its pattern, then re-run.
Regenerate the report into a clean directory so only generator output (no OS/editor droppings) is present.

Example fix

# before
public-report/.DS_Store   -> Refusing non-allowlisted path
# after
$ find public-report -name .DS_Store -delete
$ node scripts/publish-runner-protocol-eval-history.mjs ...

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import { readdirSync } from 'node:fs';
const allowed = /^(index\.html|campaign\.json|attempts\/[^/]+\/index\.html|viewer\/[^/]+)$/;
const offenders = [];
(function walk(dir, rel = '') {
  for (const e of readdirSync(dir, { withFileTypes: true })) {
    const p = rel ? `${rel}/${e.name}` : e.name;
    if (e.isDirectory()) walk(`${dir}/${e.name}`, p);
    else if (!allowed.test(p)) offenders.push(p);
  }
})(reportRoot);
if (offenders.length) throw new Error(`non-allowlisted: ${offenders.join(', ')}`);

Try / catch

try {
  await publishReport(root);
} catch (err) {
  if (String(err.message).startsWith('Refusing non-allowlisted public protocol eval path')) {
    console.error('Delete the stray file or extend the allowlist:', err.message);
  } else throw err;
}

Prevention

Generate reports into a clean directory to avoid .DS_Store, editor backups, and temp files.
Keep generator output and the publisher allowlist in sync when adding new file kinds.
Lint the report directory contents in CI before publication.

When it happens

Trigger: Publishing a report root containing extra files such as .DS_Store, editor backups (file~), raw JSON dumps, logs, or nested files not covered by the allowlist pattern.

Common situations: macOS .DS_Store or Thumbs.db inside the report dir; copying extra assets into the report folder; a newer generator emitting files the publisher doesn't allowlist; temp files left by a failed build.

Understand the failure class

Background: "Must be a positive integer", "Invalid value", "Unsupported": the invalid-argument-value error family, when a library rejects the value you pass — this error's family across 35 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of paperclipai/paperclip@01ad858492 (2026-09-10). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e373aab77a81791e. Report an issue: GitHub.