Dependency Auditor

Skill Type: POWERFUL · Category: Engineering · Domain: Dependency Management & Security

Offline, deterministic dependency auditing across 8+ package ecosystems. The three scripts are pattern-matchers over manifests/lockfiles — they do not call live advisory APIs; pair their findings with npm audit / pip-audit / cargo audit for current CVE coverage.

Quick Start

# 1. Scan for vulnerabilities (built-in offline CVE pattern set; exit non-zero on high severity)
python3 scripts/dep_scanner.py /path/to/project --format json --fail-on-high -o scan.json

# 2. Check license compliance and conflicts
python3 scripts/license_checker.py /path/to/project --policy strict --format json -o licenses.json

# 3. Plan upgrades from the scanner's inventory
python3 scripts/upgrade_planner.py scan.json --risk-threshold medium --timeline 90 --format json -o plan.json

Consume the outputs: scan.json findings drive which packages to pin/patch now; licenses.json conflicts go to the user as a legal-risk list; plan.json orders upgrades by risk with rollback notes. --quick-scan skips transitive deps; --security-only limits the plan to security fixes.

Verification loop: after applying upgrades, re-run step 1 and assert 0 high-severity findings before closing the audit.

Supported Ecosystems

License Classification

• Permissive: MIT, Apache 2.0, BSD (2/3-clause), ISC
• Copyleft (strong): GPL v2/v3, AGPL v3 — flags contamination risk in permissive projects
• Copyleft (weak): LGPL v2.1/v3, MPL 2.0
• Proprietary / Dual / Unknown — unknown licenses are surfaced for manual review

The checker analyzes license inheritance through dependency chains and emits conflict pairs with remediation suggestions.

Upgrade Risk Matrix

Prioritization: security patches > bug fixes > feature updates > major rewrites; deprecated features get immediate attention.

Scripts (accurate capability claims)

• scripts/dep_scanner.py — multi-format parser; built-in offline vulnerability pattern set (~16 CVE patterns — a smoke layer, not a replacement for live advisories); transitive resolution from lockfiles; JSON + text output.
• scripts/license_checker.py — license detection from package metadata; compatibility matrix across 20+ license types; --policy permissive|strict; conflict detection with remediation.
• scripts/upgrade_planner.py — semver-based breaking-change prediction; risk-ordered migration plan with testing checklist and timeline estimation.

Sample fixtures: test-project/ and test-inventory.json in this folder; expected shapes in expected_outputs/.

CI Integration

# Security gate in CI
python3 scripts/dep_scanner.py . --format json --fail-on-high
python3 scripts/license_checker.py . --policy strict --format json

Best Practices

1. Prioritize security: address high/critical findings immediately; license compliance before functionality.
2. Gradual updates: incremental upgrades with thorough testing; feature flags for risky bumps.
3. Cadence: security scans per commit; license audits monthly; full audit quarterly.
4. False positives: whitelist with documentation; contact maintainers for license ambiguity.

See README.md for detailed usage and references/ for the vulnerability/license knowledge bases.