Permission-based sandboxing

Without a permission system, every plugin receives the same access to storage, hooks, and configuration regardless of what it actually needs. Users cannot review what a plugin will do before installing it, operators cannot audit which plugins have access to sensitive data, and the host cannot prevent a plugin from exceeding its intended scope. OWASP A01 (Broken Access Control) and CWE-284 cover exactly this pattern. The absence of declared and enforced permissions also eliminates the ability to revoke capabilities selectively — any restriction requires removing the entire plugin.

Add a permissions array to the plugin manifest schema and validate it at load time. Capabilities not listed in the manifest must produce an error when accessed, not silently succeed.

// Plugin manifest:
{
  "name": "my-plugin",
  "permissions": ["hooks:read", "storage:write", "config:read"]
}

// Host enforces permissions:
function createPluginContext(plugin: PluginManifest): PluginContext {
  return {
    hooks: plugin.permissions.includes('hooks:read')
      ? hookRegistry : throwPermissionError('hooks:read'),
    storage: plugin.permissions.includes('storage:write')
      ? scopedStorage(plugin.name) : readOnlyStorage(plugin.name),
  };
}