shell-quote: `quote()` command injection via a line terminator in a token after a `{ comment }` token
Published 6 Oct 2026 · Updated 6 Oct 2026
Affected package
- Affected
- >=1.8.4 <1.11.0
- Fixed in
- 1.11.0
npm install shell-quote@1.11.0Details
Impact
quote() emits a { comment } token as # followed by its text, which comments out the rest of the shell line, including the opening quote of any later string token. A line terminator in that later string ends the comment, and the rest of the string is parsed as shell input:
quote(['echo', 'ok', { comment: 'x' }, 'a\nid;#']);
// echo ok #x 'a
// id;#'Passed to sh, bash, dash, ksh, or zsh, this runs id.
parse() emits a comment token for a # in the middle of a word (for example http://example.com/#frag), so callers that combine parse() output with another untrusted string, such as quote(parse(untrustedCommand).concat(untrustedArg)), are affected. The fix for CVE-2026-9277 rejected line terminators in the comment's own text, but not in the tokens after it.
Exploitation requires an attacker-controlled string containing a line terminator that follows a { comment } token in the same quote() call.
Patches
Fixed in v1.11.0: quote() throws a TypeError when a string after a { comment } token contains a line terminator (\n, \r, U+2028, or U+2029).
Workarounds
Drop every token after a { comment } token before calling quote(), or reject line terminators in untrusted strings. Separately, do not append other shell text after quote() output that contains a comment, since the comment swallows it.
Is GHSA-pqg4-j6r4-53mv 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 shell-quote, and gives you the command that fixes it.
References
Advisory data from OSV.dev (opens OSV.dev in a new tab), refreshed daily.