pmg/docs/trust.md

Trust

PMG exists to protect developers from malicious open source packages. This effectively means:

1. Open source packages are not implicitly trusted
2. PMG need to be trusted to block malicious packages

The assertion in [2] cannot be implicit. If so, it breaks the entire security and trust model.

Security Goals

• Adopt software supply chain security best practices so that PMG users can verify and only then trust PMG
• PMG is open source, built in public and reviewed by the community for verifiable source of truth
• PMG leverages GitHub build attestation to verify the integrity of the PMG binary with source provenance
• PMG npm package has build attestation to verify the integrity of the PMG binary and build environment with source provenance
• PMG security model is multi-layered without single point of failure

Verified Installation

Zero-friction installation options are available in README. However, for more control, you can install PMG manually after verifying the integrity of the PMG binary. Verified installations allow you to:

• Verify the integrity of the PMG binary and identify the exact source code that was used to build the binary
• Manually review the source code for trust
• Build your own binary from source or download a pre-built binary with source provenance guarantee

GitHub Release

Get the latest attested version of PMG release binaries using GitHub CLI:

gh release verify -R safedep/pmg

Optionally, you can checkout the source code from which the binary was built and review the code for trust.

export RELEASE_TAG=$(gh release view -R safedep/pmg --json tagName --jq .tagName)

gh repo clone safedep/pmg && \
cd pmg && \
git checkout $RELEASE_TAG

Install verified binary for your platform:

gh release download $RELEASE_TAG -R safedep/pmg --dir ./pmg-$RELEASE_TAG 

Install the platform specific binary from ./pmg-$RELEASE_TAG. To see binary specific attestation metadata, run:

gh attestation verify pmg_Linux_x86_64.tar.gz -R safedep/pmg --format json

npm Release

Verify npm package was built on GitHub Actions:

npm view @safedep/pmg --json

Navigate to npm package to verify the package provenance.

Security Model

PMG aims to provide a multi-layered security model to avoid single point of trust or failure. PMG's security model consists of the following layers:

1. Threat Intelligence (provided by SafeDep with planned support for BYO adapters)
2. Policy as Code (Planned CEL policy based guardrails to prevent known bad practices)
3. Sandbox for enforcing least privilege and defense in depth protection

Certificate Authority

PMG uses a MITM CA to inspect HTTPS package downloads. See Certificate Authority for how it works and how to optionally persist and OS-trust the CA.