npm-security

Apply the following security best practices. NEVER override an explicit user opt-in config (lifecycle scripts, cooldowns, save prefix, etc) unless they ask. Always check current package manager's verions, and verify against their official documentations.

Best Practices

Best practices are safer and sensible environmental defaults that should be enabled for the agent's runtime, we are using npm as example here but you should check to see which package manager is available and apply the configurations according.

Lifecycle scripts

Unless explicitly defined otherwise, package managers should have lifecycle scripts set as off, for example preinstall and postinstall.

In .npmrc, this can be set as ignore-scripts=true, or through install command: npm install --ignore-scripts <package>.

Dependency cooldowns / minimum release age

Unless explicitly defined otherwise, dependency installations should respect a cooldown period (default to 3 days).

In .npmrc, this can be set as min-release-age=3, or through install command npm install --min-release-age=3 <package>.

Exact versions

Unless explicitly defined otherwise, package installations should install the expact version instead of a semver range.

In .npmrc, this can be set as save-exact=true, or through install command npm install --save-exact <package>

Persist these defaults in the project .npmrc (or the package manager’s equivalent), merging only keys that are unset; never overwrite existing values unless the user asks.

Planning stage / package scorers

When planning third-party dependencies, we should score package candidates first. This reduces risk of greyware (not malware, but can be trollware, abandonware, low quality, license changes, etc).

Few free and trustworthy scorers are:

• Socket MCP Server: https://github.com/SocketDev/socket-mcp
• https://deps.dev/
• OpenSSF Scorecard: https://github.com/ossf/scorecard

For example, Socket MCP server can be figured as:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "socket-mcp": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.socket.dev/"
    }
  }
}

Once installed, use the MCP to ask questions like:

• "Check the security score for express version 4.18.2"
• "Analyze the security of my package.json dependencies"
• "What are the vulnerability scores for react, lodash, and axios?"

The user should set a policy of when to reject dependencies based on their health metrics (quality, supply chain, maintenance, etc), else default to a sensible number (e.g., 80).

Install stage / package scanners

When it is time to install third-party dependencies, we should wrap the installation command with a package scanner first. This reduces risk of compromises as the scanner will check against a real-time intelligence database.

Few free and trustworthy scanners are:

• Socket Firewall Free CLI: https://github.com/SocketDev/sfw-free
• osv-scanner by osv.dev: https://github.com/google/osv-scanner
• Aikido Safe Chain: https://github.com/AikidoSec/safe-chain

FOr example, the sfw cli can be downloaded first through npm i -g sfw or through npx: npx sfw npm install <package>

Even as a popular and well-known package passes the planning/scoring stage, the installation/scanning stage can catch it if they get compromised.

References

• View https://github.com/bodadotsh/npm-security-best-practices for extensive tips, including:
  • safer configurations with different JavaScript package managers (npm, yarn, pnpm, etc...)
  • best practices for maintainers and organisations etc
  • alternative solutions such as devops, registry proxy, isolated development, etc
• https://boda.sh/blog/supply-chain-security-in-coding-agents/
• https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/
• https://pnpm.io/
• https://yarnpkg.com/
• https://bun.sh/llms.txt/
• https://docs.deno.com/runtime/