Preface: Could the process wait time lead to a race condition in the vulnerability? Yes, a race condition vulnerability can directly cause or be caused by process wait times, primarily through mechanisms like resource locking and system deadlocks. When multiple processes or threads race to access the same data, the methods used to manage or exploit that timing frequently force processes into a “waiting” state.
Background: The design objective of n8n (including version 1.123.64) is to provide an extensible, fair-code workflow automation platform that bridges visual node-based design with code flexibility. Its primary goals include enabling seamless API orchestration, facilitating AI agent and model integration, and allowing secure self-hosting or cloud deployment. In fact, self-hosting n8n on a production server (via Docker or Node.js) is its primary deployment architecture and the exact environment where its custom node ecosystem is designed to thrive. When you build or install a custom node, n8n scans its configuration folders during the boot sequence. Running n8n on a server ensures that when it restarts to load your custom node, the process is stable, manageable, and isolated.
The true design objective of modern n8n is to let you mix both patterns. You can ground an unpredictable LLM agent inside a highly structured machine workflow—for instance, using deterministic machine nodes to clean input data before handing it to an LLM, or adding a manual human approval node to review an LLM agent’s output before a machine pushes it to production.
Vulnerability details: n8n before 1.123.64, 2.29.8, and 2.30.1 contains a TOCTOU race condition in the Git node’s clone operation that allows authenticated users to bypass path restrictions by swapping a directory for a symlink after the path is validated but before the clone runs. This lets an attacker plant a crafted repository in the community node directory, which n8n loads as a custom node on the next restart, executing arbitrary JavaScript on the server. Both self-hosted and cloud instances are affected.
Official announcement: Please refer to the link for details – https://www.tenable.com/cve/CVE-2026-65598