bodadotsh 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. See "References" for links or perfom web searches.
Environment defaults
For the following best practices, we are using npm as example but you should check to see which package manager is available and apply the configurations according.
Lifecycle scripts
Unless explicitly defined otherwiese, 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>.
Cooldowns / minimum release age
Unless explicitly defined otherwiese, package installations should respect a cooldown period (default to 1 day).
In .npmrc, this can be set as min-release-age=1, or through install command npm install --min-release-age=1 <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 scorer
When planning third-party dependencies, we should score package candidates first. This reduces risk of using greyware (dependencies are not exactly malware, but can be trollware, abandonware, low quality, etc).
A free scorer solution is the Socket MCP server. Can use other package scorers if user configured explicitly.
An 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?"
If any dependencies metrics (quality, supply chain, maintenance, etc) are low (for example <=60), consider other alternatives or let the user know.
Install stage / package scanner
When time to install third-party dependencies, we should validate them against a package scanner first. This reduces risk of compromises as the scanner will check against a real-time intelligence database.
A free scanner solution is the Socket Firewall Free cli sfw. Can use other package scanners if user configured explicitly.
The sfw cli can be downloaded first through npm i -g sfw or through npx: npx sfw npm install <package>
If any package got compromised, as soon as the Socket security updated their database, the sfw cli can reject the package installations in real-time even before the malicious tarball reaches the user.
References
Package managers:
- npm: https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/
- pnpm: https://pnpm.io/
- yarn: https://yarnpkg.com/
- bun: https://bun.sh/llms.txt/
- deno: https://docs.deno.com/runtime/
Socket products: