dependency-auditor

name

dependency-auditor

description

Audit and manage dependencies across multi-language projects. Identifies vulnerabilities, license conflicts, transitive dependency risks, and safe-upgrade paths. Use when auditing third-party packages before release, investigating a CVE, planning a major version bump, or running a license-compliance review. Examples: 'audit our npm dependencies', 'do we have GPL contamination', 'plan the upgrade to React 19'.

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

Language	Manifests parsed
JavaScript/Node	package.json, package-lock.json, yarn.lock
Python	requirements.txt, pyproject.toml, Pipfile.lock, poetry.lock
Go	go.mod, go.sum
Rust	Cargo.toml, Cargo.lock
Ruby	Gemfile, Gemfile.lock
Java	pom.xml, gradle.lockfile
PHP	composer.json, composer.lock
C#/.NET	packages.config, project.assets.json

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

Risk	Update type	Handling
Low	Patch, security fixes	Apply immediately
Medium	Minor with new features	Batch into scheduled update
High	Major version, API changes	Dedicated migration task + tests
Critical	Known breaking changes	Planned migration with rollback procedure

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.