PT-2026-120321 · Npm · Launch-Editor+2

Published

2026-10-20

·

Updated

2026-10-20

CVSS v4.0

6.3

Medium

VectorAV:N/AC:L/AT:P/PR:N/UI:N/VC:L/VI:L/VA:L/SC:N/SI:N/SA:N

Summary

launch-editor forwarded file paths directly to editors without sanitization. If a path resembles a CLI flag, editors like Vim may interpret it as a command, potentially causing unintended file overwrites or command execution.

Impact

Direct launch-editor users

Only apps that match all of the following conditions are affected:
  • The attacker is able to create a file system entry (e.g. a file or directory) starting with + or - in the working directory
  • The user uses or the app specifies any of the following editors:
  • Vim (including gVim)
  • MacVim
  • Emacs (including Emacsclient)
  • Notepad++ (only if using a plugin exposing dangerous operations via plugin messages)
  • The first argument of launchEditor can start with + or - or the user is using WSL

launch-editor-middleware users

Only apps that match the following conditions are affected:
  • The attacker is able to create a file system entry (e.g. a file or directory) starting with + or - in the working directory
  • The user uses or the app specifies any of the following editors:
  • Vim (including gVim)
  • MacVim
  • Emacs (including Emacsclient)
  • Notepad++ (only if using a plugin exposing dangerous operations via plugin messages)
  • launch-editor older than v2.2.0 is used, or the user is using WSL

Vite users

Only apps that match the following conditions are affected:
  • The attacker is able to create a file system entry (e.g. a file or directory) starting with + or - in the working directory
  • The user uses or the app specifies any of the following editors:
  • Vim (including gVim)
  • MacVim
  • Emacs (including Emacsclient)
  • Notepad++ (only if using a plugin exposing dangerous operations via plugin messages)
  • The user is using WSL

Details

launchEditor(file) function passes the file name as-is to the editor if the file with that file name exists. If the file name starts with - (also + for Vim), the editor treats them as flags rather than positional arguments. For example, Vim treats arguments starting with + as an Ex command. As a result, an existing relative directory such as:
+call writefile(["SAFE MARKER"],"LAUNCH EDITOR MARKER")|qa!
is not treated as a filename when passed to Vim. Vim executes the embedded Ex command.
The following editor has a potentially destructive operation exposed to the CLI arguments:
  • Vim (including gVim)
  • MacVim
  • Emacs (including Emacsclient)
  • Notepad++ (only if using a plugin exposing dangerous operations via plugin messages)
launch-editor-middleware v2.2.0+ converts the passed file path to an absolute path so those are not affected as long as the user is not using WSL. For WSL, launch-editor converts the paths to relative paths internally, so those are still affected.
Vite 2.0.0+ uses launch-editor-middleware v2.2.0+ so the WSL users are only affected.

Fix

Argument Injection

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Weakness Enumeration

CWE-88

Related Identifiers

GHSA-R825-W8MM-5PXW

Affected Products

Launch-Editor
Vite
Vite-Plus