Description

Nuxt: Dev server discloses project absolute path and persistent workspace UUID via /.well-known/appspecific/com.chrome.devtools.json

Summary

When running nuxt dev, Nuxt registers an unauthenticated route at /.well-known/appspecific/com.chrome.devtools.json that returns the absolute filesystem path of the project root and a per-project UUID persisted to node_modules/.cache/nuxt/chrome-workspace.json. The route is enabled by default via experimental.chromeDevtoolsProjectSettings: true.

The endpoint exists to let Chrome DevTools' Workspace integration map sources to the developer's local checkout. The handler is registered directly on nitro.options.devHandlers and does not pass through the CORS / origin wrapper that the rest of the dev pipeline uses, so it has no host / origin / Sec-Fetch-Site check of its own.

Impact

Dev-server only. Production builds do not register the route.

Two values are disclosed:

workspace.root: the absolute filesystem path of the project (commonly reveals the OS username and the on-disk project name).

workspace.uuid: a v4 UUID persisted to node_modules/.cache/nuxt/chrome-workspace.json, stable across dev-server restarts and re-clones.

Threat model

The response carries no Access-Control-Allow-Origin header. A cross-origin fetch() from an arbitrary malicious page is therefore blocked by the browser's same-origin policy and cannot read the body. The two realistic recovery paths are:

LAN-adjacent attacker when the developer runs nuxt dev --host (or otherwise binds to a non-loopback interface). A plain curl http://<dev-lan-ip>:3000/.well-known/appspecific/com.chrome.devtools.json returns the JSON; no browser, no CORS.

DNS rebinding against the default loopback dev server. A page the developer visits resolves to the attacker, then re-resolves to 127.0.0.1 after the TTL; the browser believes the request is same-origin and reads the response.

Affected versions

[email protected] (PR #32084) through [email protected]. 3.x is not affected.

Reproduction

npx nuxt dev
curl -s http://localhost:3000/.well-known/appspecific/com.chrome.devtools.json
# {"workspace":{"uuid":"...","root":"/Users/<name>/..."}}

Workaround

Set experimental: { chromeDevtoolsProjectSettings: false } in nuxt.config.ts. Chrome DevTools' Workspace auto-integration will stop working; the dev server is otherwise unaffected.

Patches

Fixed in [email protected] by #35201 (commit 55c75b78). The handler is now routed through the same host / origin gate the rest of the dev server uses, so the endpoint only responds to requests that look local.

Mitigation

Aliases

References