Security scanner

aube ships a drop-in implementation of Bun's Security Scanner API. Point securityScanner at the same npm package you'd put in Bun's bunfig.toml#install.security.scanner and aube loads the module through a node bridge that adapts Bun's in-process plugin contract to a subprocess. The reference scanner template at oven-sh/security-scanner-template and the production scanner at @socketsecurity/bun-security-scanner both run unchanged.

# aube-workspace.yaml
securityScanner: "@acme/bun-security-scanner"
# or a path to a local scanner:
# securityScanner: ./scripts/scanner.mjs

Install the scanner package as a dev dep so it lives in node_modules/ by the time the gate runs:

aube add -D @acme/bun-security-scanner

The empty string (the default) disables the integration. Requires Node 22.6+ on PATH.

When the scanner runs

Post-resolve, once per command invocation. After the resolver returns a finalized graph and before the fetch / link phase starts, aube extracts every resolved (name, version) pair — root direct deps plus every transitive — and hands the full set to the scanner in one node subprocess call. A fatal advisory aborts before any tarball downloads happen.

The same gate covers aube install and aube add (since aube add runs the install pipeline internally). One node spawn per command invocation, regardless of how many packages are in the graph.

Scoped private packages, file: / link: / workspace siblings, git deps, and remote tarballs are excluded from the payload — public-data scanners have no advisories for those. Aliased entries ({ "my-alias": "npm:real-pkg@^4" }) are reported under the real registry name real-pkg, not the alias.

Authoring a scanner

A scanner is a JavaScript (or TypeScript) module that exports a scanner object with a scan({ packages }) function:

import type { Security } from "bun";

export const scanner: Security.Scanner = {
  version: "1",
  async scan({ packages }) {
    const advisories: Security.Advisory[] = [];
    for (const p of packages) {
      // packages[i].name    — registry name (alias-resolved)
      // packages[i].version — resolved version, e.g. "4.17.21"
      if (await isMalicious(p.name, p.version)) {
        advisories.push({
          level: "fatal",
          package: p.name,
          description: "Reported as malicious",
          url: `https://example.org/${p.name}`,
        });
      }
    }
    return advisories;
  },
};

Levels:

• fatal — aborts the install with ERR_AUBE_SECURITY_SCANNER_FATAL (exit 48).
• warn — emits WARN_AUBE_SECURITY_SCANNER_FINDING and lets the install proceed.
• Anything else — logged at debug level and otherwise ignored (future-proof for additional levels).

Return shape: Bun's docs specify the return value is Advisory[]. Aube also accepts { advisories: [...] } as a friendly fallback for scanners that wrap their result.

The published @types/bun package ships the canonical Bun.Security.Scanner / Bun.Security.Package / Bun.Security.Advisory types — install it as a dev dep when authoring a TypeScript scanner.

Bun runtime APIs aube shims

Real published scanners use a small but specific slice of the Bun runtime. The bridge ships shims so they work unchanged:

Bun API	aube shim
import Bun from 'bun'	Resolves to an aube virtual module via a Node module.register() loader hook. globalThis.Bun is also populated.
Bun.env	Alias for process.env.
Bun.file(path)	Returns an object with .exists(), .text(), .json(), .arrayBuffer(), .bytes().
Bun.write(path, data)	Writes a file (supports strings, ArrayBuffer, TypedArray, BunFile-like objects, or anything JSON-serializable).
Bun.semver.satisfies(version, range)	Delegates to the project's semver npm package (near-universal transitive dep). Falls back to exact-equality comparison with a one-time stderr warning if semver isn't resolvable.

That surface covers everything the oven-sh template (Bun.semver.satisfies) and the Socket scanner (Bun.env, Bun.file) actually call.

Differences from Bun

• Requires Node 22.6+ so the bridge can pass --experimental-strip-types to load .ts scanner entrypoints directly (Socket's package, for example, ships raw TypeScript via "exports": "./src/index.ts" with no build step).
• Bun-runtime APIs outside the shim — Bun.spawn, Bun.password, Bun.serve, the web framework, the test runner — throw at runtime. The bridge surfaces this as ERR_AUBE_SECURITY_SCANNER_FAILED and the install fails closed (see below).
• A fatal advisory on aube add exits non-zero with package.json already mutated. Bun behaves the same way; revert with git checkout package.json if you don't want to keep the edit.

Failure semantics

Fail closed on any scanner failure: node missing on PATH, scanner module unresolvable in node_modules, non-zero exit, 30 second timeout, unparseable JSON output, scanner throws. A configured scanner that can't run is treated as a refusal — silently bypassing on failure would defeat the entire point of opting in.

Escape hatch: set securityScanner = "" to disable the integration. Operators bootstrapping a project (the scanner package isn't in node_modules on first install) or recovering from a broken scanner can unset, complete the install, then re-enable.

Performance

One node subprocess per command invocation. The scanner sees the full resolved graph in one batched scan({ packages }) call — no per-package round-trips. Cold-start cost is bounded:

Phase	Approx. cost
node cold start	50–150 ms
Bridge + shim load	50–200 ms
Scanner module load	depends on scanner
scan() invocation	depends on scanner (Socket's hits their API for verdicts)

A passing aube install against a scanner that returns no advisories typically adds well under one second. Warm-cache installs that short-circuit before resolve don't run the scanner at all.

Security hardening

• The subprocess environment is scrubbed of AUBE_AUTH_TOKEN, NPM_TOKEN, NODE_AUTH_TOKEN, GITHUB_TOKEN, and GH_TOKEN before exec. A hostile or compromised scanner package can't read those out of process.env.
• kill_on_drop(true) on the spawn ensures a hung scanner is SIGKILLed at the 30 s timeout instead of leaking as an orphan process.
• The scanner module is loaded with the project root as cwd, not aube's working directory. Module resolution from the scanner uses the project's node_modules.
• The bridge writes three short .mjs files (the shim, the loader hook, the runner) to a fresh tempfile::TempDir per invocation. The temp dir is cleaned up when the subprocess exits.

Configuring an existing Bun scanner

Most Bun-compatible scanners are published as npm packages with a single securityScanner = "<package-name>" line. Some accept extra configuration via environment variables (Socket, for example, reads SOCKET_SECURITY_API_KEY from Bun.env). Set those in the parent shell environment — aube's bridge passes process.env through (minus the token scrub list above).

export SOCKET_SECURITY_API_KEY="…"
aube install   # scanner sees SOCKET_SECURITY_API_KEY via Bun.env

Related settings

• securityScanner — the module spec.
• paranoid — does not currently enable a default scanner. If you want a scanner running in CI, configure it explicitly.

Related codes

• ERR_AUBE_SECURITY_SCANNER_FATAL (exit 48) — scanner returned a fatal advisory.
• ERR_AUBE_SECURITY_SCANNER_FAILED — scanner couldn't run (fail-closed contract).
• WARN_AUBE_SECURITY_SCANNER_FINDING — scanner returned a warn-level advisory.