ci-sentinel 🛡️
Security auditor for SEVEN CI ecosystems — GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD,
Jenkins, CircleCI, Azure Pipelines, Bitbucket Pipelines and Travis CI — finds
the supply-chain and injection flaws a YAML linter can't see, before an
attacker's pull/merge request runs code with your repository secrets.
Available as an MCP server (for Claude / Cursor / any agent) and a
pay-per-call HTTP API (x402 USDC or a prepaid card key).
Give it your .github/workflows/*.yml, .gitlab-ci.yml, Jenkinsfile,
.circleci/config.yml, azure-pipelines.yml, bitbucket-pipelines.yml and/or
.travis.yml (each file is auto-routed to the right analyzer) and get a
CRITICAL / VULNERABLE / RISKY / HARDENED verdict with the exact flaws.
What it catches that a linter can't
| Class | What ci-sentinel does |
|---|
| 💉 Expression injection (inter-step / inter-job taint) | Taints untrusted ${{ github.event.* }} (issue/PR title, body, comment, review, branch name, commit message, label name, fork repo identity, edited-from values) to a run: shell or actions/github-script sink — and follows it across steps.<id>.outputs.*, needs.<job>.outputs.*, env: vars, matrix values and reusable-workflow inputs.*. An attacker who hides the untrusted value behind an intermediate output is still caught; a per-file grep is not. |
| 🎭 Pwn requests | pull_request_target / workflow_run that check out untrusted fork code in the privileged, secret-bearing context = arbitrary code execution with your secrets. |
| 🔑 Token permissions | Excessive GITHUB_TOKEN scopes (write-all, contents:write, id-token:write), missing permissions: blocks, and secrets exposed to untrusted triggers. |
| 🔁 Reusable workflows | workflow_call callers passing untrusted data across the boundary as inputs.*, and secrets: inherit handing the full secret set to a reusable workflow on an untrusted trigger. |
| 📌 Action pinning | Third-party actions (and reusable-workflow uses:) on mutable tags/branches instead of a commit SHA (the tj-actions/changed-files-style hijack), resolved through the transitive action graph. |
| 🖥️ Self-hosted RCE | Self-hosted runners reachable from public-repo PRs (RCE on your own infra), and OIDC id-token trust misuse. |
…and the same depth for GitLab CI/CD (.gitlab-ci.yml)
| Class | What ci-sentinel does |
|---|
| 💉 CI-variable injection | Taints untrusted GitLab variables (CI_COMMIT_REF_NAME/BRANCH/TAG, CI_MERGE_REQUEST_TITLE/DESCRIPTION/SOURCE_BRANCH_NAME, commit message/author, triggering-user fields) interpolated into script: — following the taint through variables: and extends: templates. Knows the SAFE vars (CI_COMMIT_SHA, CI_MERGE_REQUEST_IID, CI_PROJECT_ID, …) so it doesn't flag every $CI_. |
| 🎭 Fork merge-request pwn | Jobs reachable from fork MR pipelines (merge_request_event, only: merge_requests) that carry secrets / a broad CI_JOB_TOKEN / id_tokens (OIDC), or that run privileged work (deploy/publish/kubectl/terraform) with no when: manual gate. |
📦 include: supply-chain | include: from a remote URL or another project/component on a moving (non-SHA) ref — foreign pipeline code merged into yours. |
| ☣️ Artifact / cache poisoning | An untrusted job writes an artifact/cache that a privileged downstream job consumes and executes (needs:/dependencies: or a shared cache path) — a cross-job and cross-pipeline escalation. |
…and five more CI systems, same taint model
| Ecosystem | What ci-sentinel catches |
|---|
🔧 Jenkins (Jenkinsfile) | Command injection from params.* / env.CHANGE_* / ghprb* / SCM data into sh/bat/powershell (through environment{} bindings); credential-leak (credentials()/withCredentials printed or baked into a GString); Groovy evaluate()/load RCE; missing input() approval gate; unsafe agent any. |
⭕ CircleCI (.circleci/config.yml) | Shell injection from << pipeline.git.branch/tag >> / pipeline parameters into run:; unpinned orbs (@volatile / bare major); fork-PR context secret exposure with no type: approval gate; privileged deploy with no approval. |
🟦 Azure Pipelines (azure-pipelines.yml) | Macro injection from $(Build.SourceBranch) / $(System.PullRequest.SourceBranch) / commit message into script:/bash:/pwsh:; untrusted templates from a foreign repo resource; fork variable-group secret exposure; unpinned repository resources. |
🪣 Bitbucket Pipelines (bitbucket-pipelines.yml) | Shell injection from $BITBUCKET_BRANCH / $BITBUCKET_TAG / $BITBUCKET_PR_DESTINATION_BRANCH / commit message expanded unquoted into script:; secured/deployment-variable exposure on externally-triggerable PR pipelines; unpinned pipes (:latest); deployments with no trigger: manual gate. |
🚦 Travis CI (.travis.yml) | Shell injection from $TRAVIS_BRANCH / $TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST_BRANCH / $TRAVIS_COMMIT_MESSAGE expanded unquoted into a lifecycle hook; secure-env PR/fork secret exposure; deploy: stages with no on: branch/condition gate. |
…plus two deep cross-domain detectors a one-shot agent can't replicate
| Detector | What ci-sentinel catches |
|---|
| ☁️ OIDC cloud-trust misconfiguration (Terraform / CloudFormation / GCP workload-identity / Azure federated-credential) | Models the cloud half of CI OIDC: the trust policy of the IAM role / WIF pool / federated app. Flags a sub condition with a broad wildcard (repo:org/*, repo:*), no sub condition at all (any workflow on the issuer assumes the role), a repo pinned but ref/environment unpinned (any branch assumes), the bare pull_request subject (fork-reachable), or an unpinned aud. Then correlates the IaC trust with the CI side (a workflow that mints id-token reachable from an untrusted trigger) and escalates to critical when the chain is reachable end-to-end. No single-file linter catches this — it spans the CI claim and the cloud trust policy. |
🔧 Jenkins shared libraries (@Library → vars/*.groovy) | Taints an untrusted pipeline value (PR title / branch / build parameter) passed to a shared-library global-var step through the library's call() interior to an internal sh/bat sink — the Jenkins parity of orb/template/composite-action cross-file taint, invisible when reading only the Jenkinsfile. Also flags @Library imports on a mutable ref (a branch / default version) as supply-chain risk. |
Each analyzer knows the SAFE variables (SHAs, numeric ids, trusted slugs —
BITBUCKET_COMMIT, TRAVIS_PULL_REQUEST, pipeline.git.revision, …) and the
SAFE OIDC trusts (sub pinned to repo:org/repo:ref:refs/heads/main /
:environment:prod with aud set) so it doesn't flag every $VAR or every
trust. Zero false positives on hardened configs.
It is a real static analyzer: a line-aware workflow YAML parser → a model of
triggers/jobs/steps/permissions/actions/outputs/needs → an inter-step/inter-job
taint resolver + permission + supply-chain detectors → a scored verdict with
per-finding file:line, the full taint path, concrete remediation, and a
SARIF 2.1.0 report (with codeFlows) you can upload to GitHub code scanning.
…and it doesn't just flag — it FIXES, and it GRADES
| Premium | What you get |
|---|
| 🔧 Auto-remediation (the exact fix) | For each finding ci-sentinel produces the concrete change: the corrected YAML/Groovy snippet and a unified diff you can apply — pin the action/orb/pipe to an immutable SHA/version, env-bind + quote the injected expression, drop write-all to least privilege, insert the manual/approval gate, pin the OIDC sub/aud, move the hardcoded secret to the store (and rotate it). Not "you have a bug" but "change THIS to THIS", with a confidence label (exact / template / guided) so you know what's drop-in vs. what needs a value filled. Findings carry a stable fingerprint for de-duplication, and the SARIF results carry inline fixes. |
| 📋 Compliance scorecard (A–F) | A CIS-like CI security benchmark scored A–F with a PASS / FAIL / WARN / N/A breakdown per control (least privilege, component pinning, no secrets to forks, no self-hosted on public PRs, OIDC pinned, no hardcoded secrets, no pwn checkout, gated deploys, no injection, no cross-job poisoning). Each control lists the finding ids that drove its verdict — defensible to a security team. A directly-exploitable critical flaw caps the grade (one open RCE/secret-exfil path dominates the posture). |
| 🛰️ Live threat-intelligence feed (the data moat) | Every uses: / orb / pipe in your config is checked against a live, server-side feed of KNOWN-compromised CI components, ingested on a cron from public sources — OSV.dev and the GitHub Security Advisory database (ecosystem=actions) — and merged onto a curated seed of the flagship incidents (tj-actions/changed-files CVE-2025-30066, reviewdog/action-setup CVE-2025-30154 and its transitive dependents, the aquasecurity/trivy-action tag force-push, Ultralytics). It knows that tj-actions/changed-files@v45 is poison and that the same action SHA-pinned to a clean commit or upgraded to @v46 is safe — a distinction a static YAML scan or a local linter cannot make, because it has no feed. The feed lives only on the hosted server (the thin client never carries it); GET /feed/status surfaces its freshness. A live reputation signal (stars / last-commit / archived / does-the-repo-still-resolve) additionally flags archived/abandoned components and dangling references that are takeover-bait. This is the access-moat that justifies the hosted, paid model: the value is the live DATA, not the compute. |
| 🪤 Tag-rewrite & imposter detection (live ref→commit) | Give ci-sentinel the commit SHA you expected a mutable ref to be (from your lockfile/SBOM) and it resolves what the tag currently points at upstream — flagging a tag-rewrite / force-push (@v2 now runs a different commit than you reviewed — the exact tj-actions attack), a deleted/dangling ref, or a suspiciously recent move. It also pairs typosquat detection with the live reputation signal to confirm impersonation — actons/checkout (a near-miss of actions) whose repo is a freshly-stood-up, low-star or dangling imposter — vs. a legitimately-named small fork (no false positive). And because the feed is keyed by component identity, a compromised action is caught no matter which CI system references it (cross-CI) — the piece a mono-CI scanner structurally can't have. |
MCP server (free)
{
"mcpServers": {
"ci-sentinel": { "command": "npx", "args": ["-y", "ci-sentinel-mcp"] }
}
}
Tool: audit_ci_security. Pass files (a map of workflow filename → YAML) or
source (one workflow). The free tier returns the verdict and how many issues
of each kind were found.
Deep audit (deep: true) — two ways to pay
The deep audit returns every finding with file:line, the full inter-step/
inter-job injection taint path, the transitive action supply-chain graph, a
concrete fix (corrected snippet + unified diff) per finding, an A–F compliance
scorecard with a per-control breakdown, and a SARIF 2.1.0 document with inline
fixes (uploadable to GitHub code scanning via github/codeql-action/upload-sarif).
- 💳 Card (Stripe) — buy a prepaid key at
https://ci-sentinel.vercel.app/pro/checkout,
then set "env": { "CI_SENTINEL_KEY": "<key>" } in your MCP config.
- 🪙 x402 (USDC) — AI agents pay per call automatically (USDC on Base), no signup.
HTTP API
POST /audit # free, rate-limited — verdict + per-severity counts
POST /pro/audit # deep — pay-per-call (x402) or Authorization: Bearer <key>
POST /mcp # MCP-over-HTTP (free)
GET /presence # live active sessions (last 5 min)
GET / # this landing page
curl -X POST https://ci-sentinel.vercel.app/audit \
-H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
-d '{"files":{".github/workflows/ci.yml":"name: CI\non: pull_request_target\n..."}}'
Why hosted? (the moat)
The npm package is a thin client: it runs no analysis locally. The parser,
taint engine, action-graph resolver and detector knowledge base run server-side
only, behind the paywall — so the premium material (findings, evidence, taint
paths, remediation) never lands on the caller's machine. A npm pack ships only
dist/mcp.js, dist/mcpServer.js and dist/types.js; the engine is never in the
tarball (verified automatically by npm run test:moat).
How the live feed stays live (the update pipeline)
The threat-intelligence feed is ingested, not hard-coded. A periodic job runs
server-side:
- Fetch advisories from two public sources (no paid keys):
- GitHub Security Advisory DB —
GET /advisories?ecosystem=actions (public;
GITHUB_TOKEN only raises the rate limit, it is not required).
- OSV.dev — the
GitHub Actions ecosystem, queried for the components we
already track plus everything GHSA just surfaced (so OSV enriches them).
- Normalize each advisory into a
ThreatRecord — owner/name split, incident
class inferred from the advisory text (tag-rewrite / maintainer-compromise /
malicious / CVE…), severity bucketed, the affected version range parsed into a
selector, the fixed version captured (so an upgraded pin does not fire).
- Merge the rows onto the curated seed (
ingestFeed: union refs, keep the
worst severity, widen the affected range, de-dup by identity).
- Store the snapshot in Cloudflare KV. Every
/pro/audit reads it back via
kvFeedProvider, falling back to the compiled seed if KV is cold — so the
detector is never blocked and never worse than the static baseline.
node scripts/refreshFeed.mjs
CI_SENTINEL_NO_NET=1 node scripts/refreshFeed.mjs
Schedule it with Vercel Cron ({ "path": "/internal/refresh-feed", "schedule": "0 */6 * * *" }, guarded by FEED_REFRESH_TOKEN) or a scheduled
GitHub Action that runs node scripts/refreshFeed.mjs. GET /feed/status reports
the live snapshot's version, generatedAt and record count — the public freshness
proof. None of this ships in the npm client.
Development
npm install
npm run build
npm test
npm run test:moat
npm run dev:http
Heuristic static analysis of the workflow YAML you provide — it cannot see
repo-level default token permissions, branch protections or org policy, and does
not execute the pipeline. Treat findings as leads to verify.
Source & docs: https://github.com/Baneado98/ci-sentinel · MIT