Gemini CLI: Remote Code Execution via workspace trust and tool allowlisting bypasses
Date: 2026-04
Affected: actions/google-github-actions/run-gemini-cli, npm/@google/gemini-cli, npm/@google/gemini-cli
Attack vector: prompt-injection
Category: vulnerability-disclosure
Severity: Critical
CWE: CWE-20
CWE-200
CWE-77
CWE-78
CVSS: 10 (CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:C/C:H/I:H/A:H)

# Summary Gemini CLI (`@google/gemini-cli`) and the `run-gemini-cli` GitHub Action are being updated to harden workspace trust and tool allowlisting, in particular when used in untrusted environments like GitHub Actions. This update introduces a breaking change to how non-interactive (headless) environments handle folder trust, which may impact existing CI/CD workflows under specific conditions. # Details Folder Trust in Headless Mode In previous versions, Gemini CLI running in CI environments (headless mode) automatically trusted workspace folders for the purpose of loading configuration and environment variables. This is potentially risky in situations where Gemini CLI runs on untrusted folders in headless mode (e.g. CI workflows that review user-submitted pull requests). If used with untrusted directory contents, this could lead to remote code execution via malicious environment variables in the local `.gemini/` directory. To ensure consistency and user control, the latest update aligns headless mode behavior with interactive mode, requiring folders to be explicitly trusted before configuration files (such as `.env`) are processed. As a result of this change, GitHub Actions and other automated pipelines that rely on the previous automatic trust behavior will fail to load workspace-specific settings until they are updated to use explicit trust mechanisms. Tool Allowlisting under \--yolo In previous versions, when Gemini CLI was configured to run in `--yolo` mode, it


Mitigations:

Architectural layers (MAESTRO):