Remove get-task-allow entitlement from signed builds #1585
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This entitlement allows debugger to hook in to the app and allow other apps to call `task_for_pid()` on MacVim, and Apple has discouraged its use. In fact, the only reason why MacVim passes app notarization is because it has also set the disable-library-validation entitlement which allows get-task-allow to be set. We don't actually need get-task-allow in release binary builds as we don't intentionally want to allow external debuggers and code injection, so we should just remove it. This was previously added in macvim-dev#980 where we made a mistake in assuming that get-task-allow was what was needed to sign the app with hardened runtime while allowing scripting interface (e.g. Python) to work, but that was wrong. It was the disable-library-validation entitlment instead, as we need the ability to load in unsigned libraries as Python distributions from say Homebrew are not signed. Credit: This was pointed out by Karol Mazurek
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By default, building MacVim locally will sign with an ad-hoc signature with no entitlements. Release builds are then signed with the `macvim-signed` target which signs MacVim with a valid signature and embed the entitlments. This new target allows us to sign MacVim to have similar entitlements and behaviors as a release build without needing an Apple Developer signature. There are currently two possible use cases for this: 1. Package managers like Homebrew can use this to build MacVim to get the correct hardened runtime entitlements. 2. Reproducible builds (macvim-dev#1506) can use this to generate a reproducible artifact. Proper release builds are not reproducible since there's no way for a proper digital signature to be reproduced, but we can strip and re-sign with an ad-hoc signature reproducibly using this target for a decent compromise. Related: macvim-dev#1585
ychin
added a commit
to ychin/macvim
that referenced
this pull request
Jul 23, 2025
By default, building MacVim locally will sign with an ad-hoc signature with no entitlements. Release builds are then signed with the `macvim-signed` target which signs MacVim with a valid signature and embed the entitlments. This new target allows us to sign MacVim to have similar entitlements and behaviors as a release build without needing an Apple Developer signature. There are currently two possible use cases for this: 1. Package managers like Homebrew can use this to build MacVim to get the correct hardened runtime entitlements. 2. Reproducible builds (macvim-dev#1506) can use this to generate a reproducible artifact. Proper release builds are not reproducible since there's no way for a proper digital signature to be reproduced, but we can strip and re-sign with an ad-hoc signature reproducibly using this target for a decent compromise. Related: macvim-dev#1585
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This entitlement allows debugger to hook in to the app and allow other apps to call
task_for_pid()on MacVim, and Apple has discouraged its use. In fact, the only reason why MacVim passes app notarization is because it has also set the disable-library-validation entitlement which allows get-task-allow to be set. We don't actually need get-task-allow in release binary builds as we don't intentionally want to allow external debuggers and code injection, so we should just remove it.This was previously added in #980 where we made a mistake in assuming that get-task-allow was what was needed to sign the app with hardened runtime while allowing scripting interface (e.g. Python) to work, but that was wrong. It was the disable-library-validation entitlment instead, as we need the ability to load in unsigned libraries as Python distributions from say Homebrew are not signed.
Credit: This was pointed out by Karol Mazurek