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pmg/README.md
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Sahil BansalandGitHub 302e17fe48 docs: Update supported package managers for pip (#37)
* docs: update supported package managers for pip

* Update README.md

Signed-off-by: Sahil Bansal <bansalsahil315@gmail.com>

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Signed-off-by: Sahil Bansal <bansalsahil315@gmail.com>
2025-06-10 18:46:32 +05:30

5.6 KiB

Package Manager Guard (PMG)

Created and maintained by https://safedep.io with contributions from the community 🚀

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🤖 PMG protects developers from getting compromised by malicious packages. See example

  • Wraps your favorite package manager (eg. npm)
  • Blocks malicious packages at install time
  • No configuration required, just install and use

🔥 PMG in Action

pmg in action

📦 TL;DR

Install pmg

brew install safedep/tap/pmg

Set up pmg to protect you development environment from malicious packages:

echo "alias npm='pmg npm'" >> ~/.zshrc
echo "alias pnpm='pmg pnpm'" >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

Continue using your favorite package manager as usual:

npm install <package-name>
pnpm add <package-name>

📑 Table of Contents

🔥 Features

  • 🚫 Malicious package identification using SafeDep Cloud
  • 🌲 Deep dependency analysis and transitive dependency resolution
  • Fast and efficient package verification
  • 🔄 Seamless integration with existing package managers

Supported Package Managers

PMG supports the following package managers:

Package Manager Status Command
npm Active pmg npm install <package>
pnpm Active pmg pnpm add <package>
pip Active pmg pip install <package>
yarn 🚧 Planned
poetry 🚧 Planned
uv 🚧 Planned

Want us to support your favorite package manager? Open an issue and let us know!

Installation

Homebrew

You can install pmg using homebrew in MacOS and Linux

brew tap safedep/tap
brew install safedep/tap/pmg

Binaries

Download the latest binary from the releases page.

Build from Source

Ensure $(go env GOPATH)/bin is in your $PATH

go install github.com/safedep/pmg@latest

Usage

Install a package with npm, pnpm, or pip:

pmg npm install <package-name>
pmg pnpm add <package-name>
pmg pip install <package-name>

Set shell alias for convenience:

alias npm="pmg npm"
alias pnpm="pmg pnpm"
alias pip="pmg pip"

Continue using your favorite package manager as usual:

npm install <package-name>
pnpm add <package-name>
pip install <package-name>

Silent Mode

Use the --silent flag to run PMG in silent mode:

pmg --silent npm install <package-name>

Dry Run

Use the --dry-run flag to skip actual package installation. When enabled pmg will not execute package manager commands. Useful for checking packages and their transitive dependencies for malware.

pmg --dry-run npm install <package-name>

Verbose Mode

Use the --verbose flag to run PMG in verbose mode:

pmg --verbose npm install <package-name>

Debugging

Use the --debug flag to enable debug mode:

pmg --debug npm install <package-name>

Store the debug logs in a file:

pmg --debug --log /tmp/debug.json npm install <package-name>

🤝 Contributing

Refer to CONTRIBUTING.md

🚫 Limitations

Approximate dependency version resolution

pmg resolves the transitive dependencies of a package to be installed. It does it by querying package registry APIs such as npmjs and pypi. However, almost always, dependency versions are specified as ranges instead of specific version. Different package managers have different ways of resolving these ranges. It also depends on peer or host dependencies already available in the application.

pmg is required to block a malicious package before it is installed. Hence it applies its own heuristic to choose a version from a version range for evaluation. This is fine when all versions of a given package is malicious. However, there is a possibility of inconsistency when a specific version of a package is malicious.