Permission model won't allow a child process to run npm install

[trevorgithub]

Version

v22.19.0

Platform

Linux 8fc8db0b3aa3 6.6.87.2-microsoft-standard-WSL2 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Jun  5 18:30:46 UTC 2025 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Subsystem

No response

What steps will reproduce the bug?

I'm trying to make add permission to existing node app. The app runs in a docker container and uses exec to call out to npm to install a package.

The node process is started from docker container like this:
CMD ["node", "--permission", \ "--allow-fs-read=*", \ "--allow-fs-write=*", "--allow-child-process", \ "index.js"]

Later, when the code is running, it tries to run npm install:

await exec('npm install --ignore-scripts --no-audit', {

            cwd: tempDirectory,

            timeout: 300000 // 5 minutes

        });

The result at runtime is this:

app-1  | npm error code ERR_ACCESS_DENIED
app-1  | npm error relative symbolic link target

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

It occurs consistently, once introducing --permission

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

I was hoping that --allow-fs-read=* and --allow-fs-write=* would allow the symbolic links to work

What do you see instead?

The error message:

app-1  | npm error code ERR_ACCESS_DENIED
app-1  | npm error relative symbolic link target

Additional information

No response