Computer Police

Blocks known-malicious package installs before they touch your disk.

by Vidoc Security

---

Computer Police protects developers, CI, and coding agents from installing confirmed-malicious packages.

It runs a local registry proxy on 127.0.0.1, points supported package managers at it, and blocks package versions listed in public OSV MAL-* malware advisories. Everything else passes through.

It is deliberately narrow: not a vulnerability scanner, not a license scanner, not a static analyzer, and not a "this package looks suspicious" heuristic. If Computer Police blocks an install, the package version is already listed as malware by a public advisory source.

Install

Computer Police is safe to try: it runs locally, needs no root, and can be fully removed with computer-police uninstall.

One-liner for macOS, Linux, and Windows via WSL or Git Bash:

curl -fsSL https://computer.police.dev/install | bash

Pin a version:

curl -fsSL https://computer.police.dev/install | bash -s -- --version v0.1.5

Update or remove:

computer-police self update
computer-police self uninstall

The installer detects your OS and CPU, downloads the matching GitHub Release artifact, verifies SHA-256 checksums, and installs the CLI to ~/.computer-police/bin/computer-police. On macOS it also installs Computer Police.app to /Applications.

What changes on my machine?

computer-police install starts a local proxy on 127.0.0.1:4873, configures supported package managers to use it, stores a local ledger under ~/.computer-police/, and refreshes the public OSV malware advisory snapshot.

It does not require sudo, install a kernel extension, use a system proxy, upload package names or lockfiles, change your dependencies, or add meaningful install-time overhead. Allowed packages pass through after a fast local advisory lookup.

To undo it:

computer-police uninstall
computer-police self uninstall

Quickstart

computer-police install
computer-police doctor
npm install some-known-malicious-package@1.2.3
computer-police ledger list --limit 20

computer-police uninstall stops the proxy and restores package-manager config.

Design goals

• Low noise. Block confirmed malware only. CVEs, licenses, heuristics, and zero-days are out of scope today.
• Agent-ready. Protect Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, and custom harnesses at the package-manager layer.
• Local-first. No telemetry, no remote logging, no package names leaving your machine.
• Reversible. No root, no kernel hooks, no system proxy. Config changes can be undone.
• Fast path for safe installs. Allowed packages pass through the local proxy after a quick advisory check.

Computer Police is not trying to replace Snyk, Dependabot, npm audit, Socket, Phylum, or a full supply-chain security platform. It does one thing at install time: block package versions already confirmed as malware.

How it works

npm / pip / uv / bun
        │
        ▼
Computer Police on 127.0.0.1:4873
        │
        ├─ block if version matches OSV MAL-* advisory
        └─ otherwise pass through to npm / PyPI

The local advisory cache refreshes every 10 minutes. Install events are written to ~/.computer-police/registry-proxy/events.ndjson.

Agents, CI, and sandboxes

Computer Police is designed to work the same way in a CI runner, a devcontainer, or a remote agent VM as it does on your laptop.

- name: Install Computer Police
  run: curl -fsSL https://computer.police.dev/install | bash

- name: Enable supply-chain protection
  run: computer-police install

- name: Install dependencies (now behind Computer Police)
  run: npm ci

The installer auto-extends $GITHUB_PATH when it detects GitHub Actions, so subsequent steps find computer-police on PATH without any extra echo "$HOME/..." >> "$GITHUB_PATH" boilerplate.

Because protection happens at the package-manager layer, agents do not need plugins. Any supported package manager invoked by Claude Code, Codex, OpenCode, Cursor, or a custom harness goes through the same check.

Package manager coverage

Status	Ecosystem	Package managers
Supported	JavaScript / TypeScript	npm, yarn, pnpm, bun
Supported	Python / PyPI	pip, uv, poetry, pdm, pipx
Planned	Conda, Ruby, PHP, Rust, Go, JVM, .NET	See PUBLIC_RELEASE_TASKS.md

Our own supply chain

The CLI has zero external Go dependencies. Release artifacts are built by GitHub Actions, and the public installer verifies SHA-256 checksums before extraction.

CLI reference

computer-police install [--project]            # start proxy + point package managers at it (global by default)
computer-police uninstall [--project]          # restore package-manager config + stop the proxy
computer-police doctor                         # check binary, proxy, and registry config health
computer-police ledger list [--limit N]        # show recent install events
computer-police proxy start [--host H --port P]
computer-police proxy stop
computer-police proxy enable [--project]       # rewrite package-manager config only
computer-police proxy disable [--project]      # restore package-manager config only
computer-police proxy events [--limit N]
computer-police self update [--version vX.Y.Z]
computer-police self uninstall

Read-only local API endpoints:

• GET /api/health
• GET /api/events?limit=50
• GET /api/stats?window=week
• GET /api/advisories

macOS app

The macOS menu-bar app is a control surface for the same proxy: toggle protection, view recent events, and repair package-manager config. See desktop/ComputerPolice/README.md.

Build from source

Requires Go 1.24+.

go build -o ./computer-police ./cmd/computer-police
go test ./...
go vet ./...

For development conventions and CI rules, see AGENTS.md.

Links

• Roadmap: PUBLIC_RELEASE_TASKS.md, FEATURE_IDEAS.md
• Security reports: GitHub Security Advisories or security@vidocsecurity.com
• License: MIT
• Advisory data: OSV.dev