KeyGuard

Security linter for open source projects. Finds and fixes what others only report.

npx keyguard scan

KeyGuard v0.1.0

  ✓ Secrets          PASS   No secrets detected
  ✓ Supply Chain      PASS   All 7 workflow(s) pass supply chain checks
  ✓ Credentials       PASS   Credential hygiene checks passed
  ✓ Config Integrity  PASS   Configuration verified
  ⚠ Health            WARN   2 health recommendation(s)

  Score: 4.5/5

Why

Open source projects have standards for code quality (ESLint), dependency updates (Dependabot), and licensing. There's no equivalent for security posture: are CI actions pinned? Are secrets out of the codebase? Are AI coding tools blocked from reading .env?

Existing tools scan and report. They generate alerts you'll ignore (35% of Dependabot PRs are closed without merging). KeyGuard scans and fixes.

What it checks

5 pillars, one command.

Secrets - scans source files for API keys (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AWS, Stripe, GitHub, HuggingFace, and more). Checks for banned files (.env, .npmrc, .pypirc, *.pem). Scans MCP configs for exposed credentials.

Supply Chain - verifies GitHub Actions are pinned to commit SHAs, not mutable tags. Checks for explicit permissions blocks and flags unnecessary write access. This is the exact vector that compromised LiteLLM on March 24, 2026.

Credentials - checks .gitignore covers secret files, verifies .cursorignore and .claudeignore exist (prevents AI coding tools from reading your secrets), checks vault configuration.

Config Integrity - the .keyguard.yml config includes its own SHA-256 hash. If someone tampers with your security policy, the hash check fails. Self-protecting configuration.

Health - checks for SECURITY.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, security section in README, pre-commit hooks.

Quick start

# scan your project
npx keyguard scan

# generate config with smart defaults
npx keyguard init

# auto-fix what it finds
npx keyguard fix

# verify config hasn't been tampered with
npx keyguard verify

The fix command

This is the part that matters. Other tools tell you about 47 problems. KeyGuard fixes them.

npx keyguard fix

  ✓ Auto-fixed:
    ✓ Pinned actions/checkout@v4 -> 34e1148 in ci.yml
    ✓ Pinned actions/setup-node@v4 -> 4993ea5 in ci.yml
    ✓ Added permissions block to deploy.yml
    ✓ Added 5 patterns to .gitignore
    ✓ Created .cursorignore
    ✓ Created .claudeignore
    ✓ Created SECURITY.md template
    ✓ Updated .keyguard.yml integrity hash

  ⚠ Manual action required:
    • Enable 2FA on your GitHub account
    • Set up a secrets vault and update .keyguard.yml
    • Review branch protection rules

What fix does automatically:

• Pins every GitHub Action to its commit SHA (resolves via GitHub API)
• Adds permissions: contents: read to workflows missing it
• Adds .env, *.pem, *.key, .npmrc, .pypirc to .gitignore
• Creates .cursorignore and .claudeignore to block AI tools from reading secrets
• Creates SECURITY.md with vulnerability reporting template
• Recomputes the .keyguard.yml integrity hash

The config file

version: 1
integrity: "sha256:a1b2c3..."

secrets:
  scan:
    - "**/*.ts"
    - "**/*.py"
    - "**/*.json"

ci:
  pin_actions: true
  require_permissions: true
  write_allowed:
    - "release.yml:publish"

credentials:
  vault_provider: none

The integrity field is a SHA-256 hash of the file's own content (excluding that line). An attacker who gains repo access can't silently weaken your security policy without the hash check failing. Run keyguard verify to check it.

CI integration

- name: security check
  run: npx keyguard scan

KeyGuard exits with code 1 on any failure. Drop it in your CI pipeline and it blocks PRs that introduce security issues.

What this doesn't do

KeyGuard is a project-level security linter. It doesn't:

• Replace runtime security tools (WAFs, rate limiters, auth systems)
• Scan dependencies for CVEs (use npm audit, Socket, Snyk for that)
• Monitor for breaches after they happen (use GitGuardian, TruffleHog for that)
• Manage secrets at runtime (use Infisical, Doppler, HashiCorp Vault for that)

It works alongside all of these. KeyGuard checks that your project is set up to use them correctly.

Flags

--no-color    Disable colored output
--version     Print version
--help        Show usage

Respects the NO_COLOR environment variable.

Requirements

Node.js 18 or later. Single dependency: js-yaml.

Security

KeyGuard dogfoods itself: kguard scan runs in CI on every push. All GitHub Actions are pinned to commit SHAs. npm packages are published with Sigstore provenance attestation. Pre-commit hooks block secrets locally.

See SECURITY.md for vulnerability reporting.

Context

On March 24, 2026, LiteLLM was supply-chain attacked through compromised GitHub Action tags. Malicious packages hit 95 million daily PyPI downloads. The same week, hundreds of GitHub accounts were compromised via force-push attacks. Open source security tooling detected these attacks, but nothing prevented them.

KeyGuard exists because reporting isn't enough. Projects need enforceable security baselines with auto-remediation.

License

MIT

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Built by the team behind LLMKit.