markcmarshall Verify dependencies exist
An LLM generates plausible tokens, not verified facts. Package names, config keys, and API signatures come out of likelihood, not lookup — which means a name can be perfectly plausible and not real. This is the mechanism behind "slopsquatting": an LLM hallucinates a plausible package name, an attacker pre-registers it, and the next LLM (or the next run of the same one) that hallucinates that name pulls in the squat. Nobody typed the malicious name — the model invented it and nobody checked.
Instruction
Before adding any dependency — especially one the LLM itself introduced during code generation rather than one you explicitly named — verify it exists on the actual package registry. Never assume a plausible or conventionally-named package is real.
Check registry metadata: publish date, download/install count, maintainer and version history. A package matching an expected name but with a recent creation date, low installs, or a thin commit history is a squatting signal.
Flag near-misses — transposition, hyphen/underscore swap, singular/plural, common misspelling — of a much more popular package serving the same purpose.
Treat every new import as unverified until checked. Do not let it silently resolve into an install.