# unbounded-mint

> A variable mint amount has no modeled per-call cap below the native range or public ledger bound.

Canonical: https://nightshade.dicksonwu.xyz/rules/unbounded-mint.html
Release: Nightshade 0.1.1 (v0.1.1)

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Rule ID | `unbounded-mint` |
| Severity | medium |
| Confidence | varies |
| Maturity | experimental |
| Selection | Opt-in |
| Policy intent | not required |
| Default enabled | no |
| Category | Other active opt-ins / Token, coin and value transfers |
| Engine facts used | successful-predicates, canonical-mint-observations, numeric-bounds |
| Release | v0.1.1 |

## Selection and scope

Not selected by default. Select it with `--detectors` or the `detectors` list in nightshade.json. Either one replaces profile selection, so list every rule you want.

```sh
./.nightshade/node_modules/.bin/nightshade ./contracts --detectors unbounded-mint
./.nightshade/node_modules/.bin/nightshade detector show unbounded-mint
```

The first command runs only this rule; `--detectors` takes a comma-separated list. The second prints the rule's metadata from your installed version.

Severity is review priority. It does not express exploitability or impact. Confidence is detector metadata, not a probability. All built-in rules are experimental.

Compiler scope: the engine supports the pinned profiles 0.28.0, 0.29.0, 0.30.0, 0.31.1, 0.33.0-rc.2, 0.34.0, 0.35.0-rc.1 and 0.35.0, with ZKIR2 by default. Support for this rule can be narrower; the rule documentation below states any narrower scope.

## Corpus checks

Synthetic corpus checks for this rule in the 0.1.1 proof run. A check counts only with compiler acceptance and complete analysis.

| Positive detected | Corrected quiet | Lookalike quiet | Other negative quiet | Incomplete |
| ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: | ---: |
| 1/1 | 1/1 | 1/1 | 0/0 | 0 |

No deviations were recorded for this rule.

These are behavior checks on synthetic fixtures, not a precision or recall estimate. See [evaluation](https://nightshade.dicksonwu.xyz/evaluation.md#synthetic-corpus).

## Rule documentation

From https://github.com/DicksonWu654/nightshade/blob/v0.1.1/docs/detectors/unbounded-mint.md at v0.1.1.

Availability: **opt-in review**, medium severity, low confidence for monetary-policy risk.

### Description, example and scenario

```compact
mintShieldedToken(domain, disclose(amount), nonce, recipient);
```

A variable native mint amount retains the full 64-bit upper limit on a modeled
successful history, without a recognized public-ledger upper bound. A positive-only
check and an unrelated authorization guard do not establish a per-call quantity
cap. Review whether the application intended a tighter reward or issuance limit.
This is a quantity review, not a claim that every public mint is a vulnerability.

### Recommendation

Constrain the actual minted amount to the intended per-call limit if required by
monetary policy. Protect supply, issuer authorization and public cap integrity
separately. A local amount cap does not establish a cross-transaction supply invariant.

### Evidence and known false positives

Exact shielded/unshielded kernel mint operands, immutable scalar snapshots,
checked narrowing/type ranges and successful assertion constraints retain the
actual amount. Later atomic assertions may constrain it. Constant amounts,
narrower types, proved smaller upper envelopes and public-ledger upper/equality
bounds (including transitive aliases, immutable Map snapshots and public numeric expressions) stay quiet. Numeric operand trees establish bound origins without claiming ledger digest/preimage provenance. A bound computed from the minted amount itself supplies no independent cap. Saved public bounds and pure later proof assertions also constrain checkpoint prefixes; later ledger-dependent checks only constrain the fallible segment. A value compared with itself supplies no extra upper bound. A guard on a different amount, private echo of the amount,
new storage revision or sibling history supplies no cap for this value.
Constructors and rejected histories are excluded. Observation/projection exhaustion
is rule/entry-scoped incomplete and preserves baseline results.

Trusted-issuer minting, intentionally public faucets and unrestricted issuance
and public pending-balance withdrawals are known intent-dependent shapes; the rule remains opt-in. A recognized public
bound is not proof that its storage is protected or its value reasonable. Only
per-call limits are reviewed. Protocol pricing, custom mint effects, global supply
invariants and arbitrary algebraic proofs remain outside scope.

## Suppress a match

If a match is intentional, suppress it on the line before with the exact rule ID and a reason of at least eight characters:

```compact
// nightshade-disable-next-line unbounded-mint -- Reason this match is intentional
```

Diagnostics cannot be suppressed, and an unmatched directive for a selected rule makes analysis incomplete. See [configuration](https://nightshade.dicksonwu.xyz/configuration.md#suppress-an-intentional-match) for fingerprint suppressions and baselines.

## References

- [Rule source document at v0.1.1](https://github.com/DicksonWu654/nightshade/blob/v0.1.1/docs/detectors/unbounded-mint.md)
- [Catalog entry in rules.json](https://nightshade.dicksonwu.xyz/rules.json)
- [All rules](https://nightshade.dicksonwu.xyz/rules.md#token-coin-and-value-transfers)
- [Limitations](https://nightshade.dicksonwu.xyz/limitations.md)