Normalize stored serialized data handling

[sbreker]

Add a shared helper for reading serialized application values and update runtime call sites to use it with explicit defaults.

[sevein]

gpt-5.6-sol max is still reporting one issue:

containsObject() needs cycle detection. PHP preserves serialized references, so the valid payload a:1:{i:0;R:1;} produces a self-referential array. The recursive call then exhausts memory and terminates the request.

Regression test:

  public function testSafeUnserializeRejectsCircularArrays()
  {
      $serialized = 'a:1:{i:0;R:1;}';

      $this->assertSame(
          [],
          Qubit::safeUnserialize($serialized, [])
      );
  }

Full report here: https://gist.github.com/sevein/0aa4b44e21ec352f9cbdac5faf073c29.

[sbreker]

gpt-5.6-sol max is still reporting one issue:

containsObject() needs cycle detection. PHP preserves serialized references, so the valid payload a:1:{i:0;R:1;} produces a self-referential array. The recursive call then exhausts memory and terminates the request.

Regression test:

  public function testSafeUnserializeRejectsCircularArrays()
  {
      $serialized = 'a:1:{i:0;R:1;}';

      $this->assertSame(
          [],
          Qubit::safeUnserialize($serialized, [])
      );
  }

Full report here: https://gist.github.com/sevein/0aa4b44e21ec352f9cbdac5faf073c29.

Good catch! I have added a new commit that addresses this.

[anvit]

@sbreker this has a merge conflict due to the same test updated in #2408 . Let us know if you have the capacity to rebase and fix this, but if not, we can rebase and merge this change

[sbreker]

@sbreker this has a merge conflict due to the same test updated in #2408 . Let us know if you have the capacity to rebase and fix this, but if not, we can rebase and merge this change

Hi @anvit! Rebase completed and pushed - feel free to squash and merge anytime...