fix(auth): constant-time owner-token comparison

Owner bearer token was compared with === / !==, which short-circuits on the
first differing byte and leaks token length+prefix via response timing
(security-sweep-2026-06-01.md). New timingSafeStrEqual (crypto.timingSafeEqual
with a length pre-check so it never throws on length mismatch); wired into both
owner.js and agent_auth.js.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>

lib/api/middleware/agent_auth.js

@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 import * as agents from '../../db/repos/agents.js';
+import { timingSafeStrEqual } from '../../auth/safe_compare.js';
 
 export async function agentOrOwner(req, res, next) {
   const expectedOwner = process.env.OWNER_TOKEN;
@@ -12,7 +13,7 @@ export async function agentOrOwner(req, res, next) {
   if (scheme !== 'Bearer' || !token) {
     return res.status(401).json({ error: { code: 'unauthorized', message: 'missing bearer token' } });
   }
-  if (token === expectedOwner) {
+  if (timingSafeStrEqual(token, expectedOwner)) {
     req.actor = { kind: 'user', id: null };
     return next();
   }

lib/auth/owner.js

@@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
+import { timingSafeStrEqual } from './safe_compare.js';
+
 export function ownerOnly(req, res, next) {
   const expected = process.env.OWNER_TOKEN;
   if (!expected) {
@@ -7,7 +9,7 @@ export function ownerOnly(req, res, next) {
   }
   const auth = req.headers.authorization || '';
   const [scheme, token] = auth.split(' ');
-  if (scheme !== 'Bearer' || token !== expected) {
+  if (scheme !== 'Bearer' || !timingSafeStrEqual(token, expected)) {
     return res.status(401).json({
       error: { code: 'unauthorized', message: 'invalid token' }
     });

lib/auth/safe_compare.js

@@ -0,0 +1,23 @@
+import crypto from 'node:crypto';
+
+/**
+ * Constant-time string comparison for secrets (e.g. the owner bearer token).
+ *
+ * Plain `===` short-circuits on the first differing byte, leaking length and
+ * prefix via timing. `crypto.timingSafeEqual` is constant-time but THROWS when
+ * the two buffers differ in length — so we length-check first (length is not
+ * the secret) and only then do the constant-time compare. Returns false for
+ * any falsy / non-string input rather than throwing.
+ *
+ * @param {string} a
+ * @param {string} b
+ * @returns {boolean}
+ */
+export function timingSafeStrEqual(a, b) {
+  if (typeof a !== 'string' || typeof b !== 'string') return false;
+  if (a.length === 0 || b.length === 0) return false;
+  const ab = Buffer.from(a);
+  const bb = Buffer.from(b);
+  if (ab.length !== bb.length) return false;
+  return crypto.timingSafeEqual(ab, bb);
+}