Dependency Scan Skill | Agent Skills

Dependency Scan

CVEs, outdated packages, license compliance, and supply-chain risk across ecosystems. Deep-dependency companion to loom-security-scan (fast pre-commit/CI scanning) and loom-security-audit (methodology/compliance).

Workflow

Enumerate — parse manifests + lockfiles; separate direct vs transitive. No lockfile → builds aren't reproducible (fix first).
Scan — CVEs against advisory DBs (below); note severity, affected/fixed versions, and the dependency path.
Assess reachability — a CVE in an unimported/dev-only path is lower priority than one on a hot code path. govulncheck and Snyk reason about reachability; npm audit does not.
Remediate — minimal safe bump to the fixed version; prefer patch/minor; verify tests. Pin the result in the lockfile.

Scanning Commands

# JS      npm audit --audit-level=high   |  osv-scanner -r .
# Python  pip-audit                       |  safety check
# Rust    cargo audit                     |  cargo deny check advisories
# Go      govulncheck ./...               |  go list -m all | nancy sleuth
# Ruby    bundle audit --update
# Java    mvn org.owasp:dependency-check-maven:check
# .NET    dotnet list package --vulnerable --include-transitive
# PHP     composer audit
# Any     osv-scanner -r .   (lockfile-driven, OSV DB, all major ecosystems in one)

⚠ --vulnerable/audit tools only see what the lockfile pins — an unpinned range (^1.2.0) may resolve differently in CI. Scan the committed lockfile, and regenerate it before scanning if manifests changed.

Supply-Chain Attacks (the high-signal risks)

Registry malware now outpaces classic CVEs. Defenses are structural, not just "run audit":

Dependency confusion — you have an internal package @acme/utils; an attacker publishes @acme/utils to the public registry with a higher version. A misconfigured resolver prefers the public one and runs attacker code at install. Defend: scope internal packages to your private registry, configure the client to never fall back to public for those scopes (npm .npmrc @acme:registry=…, pip --index-url not --extra-index-url), and claim/reserve your names on the public registry.
Typosquatting — reqeusts, lodahs, python-dateutil vs dateutil. Review every new dependency name character-by-character; watch install-time scripts. Prefer well-known packages with history and many maintainers.
Namespace / maintainer hijack — a legit package gets a malicious release after an account takeover or a maintainer handoff. Defend: pin exact versions + lockfile hash integrity; delay auto-adopting brand-new releases (Renovate stabilityDays); watch for sudden maintainer changes.
Malicious install scripts — npm postinstall, pip setup.py run arbitrary code at install. Use npm ci --ignore-scripts where feasible; audit scripts of new deps.
Integrity — commit lockfiles with hashes (package-lock.json, Cargo.lock, poetry.lock, pip-compile --generate-hashes). Hashes turn a hijacked re-publish of an existing version into a hard install failure.

SBOM

Machine-readable inventory of every component — the prerequisite for "are we affected by CVE-X?" incident response and license tracking.

syft . -o spdx-json > sbom.spdx.json                 # universal (files + many ecosystems)
syft . -o cyclonedx-json > sbom.cdx.json             # CycloneDX flavor
trivy image --format spdx-json myimage:tag           # container image contents
cargo cyclonedx  |  cyclonedx-npm  |  cyclonedx-py   # ecosystem-native generators

Generate in CI per release and store it; then grype sbom:./sbom.cdx.json re-checks an existing SBOM against today's advisory DB without rebuilding.

License Compliance

npx license-checker --onlyAllow 'MIT;Apache-2.0;BSD-2-Clause;BSD-3-Clause;ISC'
cargo deny check licenses      #  pip-licenses  |  scancode-toolkit (deep)

| Category | Examples | Risk | | -------- | -------- | ---- | | Permissive | MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, ISC | Safe; Apache-2.0 adds patent grant | | Weak copyleft | MPL-2.0, LGPL | OK if dynamically linked / file-level; check linking | | Strong copyleft | GPL, AGPL | May force source disclosure — AGPL triggers on network use (SaaS) | | Unknown / missing | — | Block until resolved; unlicensed = all-rights-reserved |

Automated Updates (Renovate)

{
  "extends": ["config:recommended", ":semanticCommits"],
  "vulnerabilityAlerts": { "labels": ["security"], "enabled": true },
  "packageRules": [
    { "matchUpdateTypes": ["major"], "automerge": false },
    { "matchUpdateTypes": ["minor", "patch"], "matchCurrentVersion": "!/^0/", "automerge": true },
    { "matchDepTypes": ["devDependencies"], "automerge": true, "groupName": "dev deps" }
  ],
  "minimumReleaseAge": "3 days",
  "prConcurrentLimit": 5
}

⚠ minimumReleaseAge/stabilityDays deliberately delays adopting fresh releases — the window in which hijacked/malicious versions are typically caught and yanked. Never auto-merge majors; ^0.x is pre-1.0 where minors can break.

Verification Checklist

[ ] Lockfile present, committed, with integrity hashes; scan targets the lockfile (not just manifest ranges)
[ ] Every ecosystem in the repo scanned; transitive deps included
[ ] Findings ranked by reachability + severity, not raw CVSS; each has a fixed-version upgrade path
[ ] Internal packages scoped to a private registry with no public fallback (dependency-confusion closed)
[ ] New dependencies eyeballed for typosquats and reviewed for install scripts
[ ] SBOM generated for the release and stored
[ ] Licenses checked against an allowlist; no AGPL/GPL surprises for a proprietary/SaaS product
[ ] Auto-update bot enabled with a release-age delay and no major auto-merge

For pre-commit/CI wiring see loom-security-scan; for exploit-context risk rating and compliance framing see loom-security-audit.

Agent Skills: Dependency Scan

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