Skip to content
OpenAdvisories
Medium · 5.6 CVE-2025-13437 EUVD-2025-198297GHSA-w87r-vg9q-crqm

Arbitrary node_modules Directory Deletion in Google zx

Published Nov 20, 2025 · Updated Nov 20, 2025 · Assigned by Google

Description

When zx is invoked with --prefer-local=<path>, the CLI creates a symlink named ./node_modules pointing to <path>/node_modules. Due to a logic error in src/cli.ts (linkNodeModules / cleanup), the function returns the target path instead of the alias (symlink path). The later cleanup routine removes what it received, which deletes the target directory itself. Result: zx can delete an external <path>/node_modules outside the current working directory.

Affected products

VendorProductAffectedFixed
Google zx 8.8.4 —

Affected packages

EcosystemPackageAffectedFixedRecord
npm zx < 8.8.5 8.8.5 GHSA-w87r-vg9q-crqm

References