DepGate

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What is DepGate?

DepGate sits between your package managers and the public registries they download from, and decides, version by version, what is allowed into your organization.

Developers and CI pipelines point npm, pip, mvn, go, dotnet, cargo, composer or gem at DepGate instead of the public registry. DepGate fetches the package from upstream, checks it against the malware list and your policies, and either serves it or refuses it with a clear reason. Nothing reaches a laptop or a build without passing that check, and every decision is recorded.

Why a gateway, not a scanner

Open-source packages are the largest part of most applications and the easiest way in for an attacker. A hijacked maintainer account, a typosquatted name or a package that impersonates an internal one can reach thousands of builds within hours. Scanning after npm install is too late: the install scripts have already run.

DepGate moves the decision to the moment of download:

• Known malware never downloads. Every request is checked against a continuously synced feed of more than 200,000 malicious packages, before any policy.
• Risky versions fail with a reason. A blocked download returns HTTP 403 naming the policy and the finding, with a link to the newest allowed version.
• One set of rules, everywhere. A policy covers every developer, every CI runner and every ecosystem you choose, and takes effect within seconds.
• Every decision on record. Security and compliance can answer "who installed what, when, and why was it allowed?"

Demo video

Two minutes, in five steps: a security engineer creates a policy, a developer's npm install is refused with the reason, the decision appears in the Decision Ledger, Package check points at the newest allowed version, and a waiver is requested and approved.

Features

	Feature	What it gives you
🌐	Eight ecosystems, one gateway	npm, PyPI, Maven, Go modules, NuGet, Cargo, Composer and RubyGems, each on its own URL. Download links are rewritten so clients cannot bypass the gateway. Connect a package manager →
🛡️	Malware blocked by default	A synced feed of known-malicious packages is checked on every download, plus your own entries and overrides. Malware packages →
📜	Policies you can read	Block by vulnerability (CVSS and EPSS exploit likelihood), license, release age, release type, project health (OpenSSF Scorecard) or package name. Each policy has one rule and states in one sentence what it does. Policy rules →
👁️	Monitor before you enforce	Run a new policy in monitor mode on real traffic, see exactly which downloads it would break, approve what must keep working, then enforce. Monitoring →
🏷️	Dependency-confusion protection	Your internal package names are served only from your internal registries, never from a public look-alike. Namespace protection →
🔎	Answers for developers	Package check shows which versions are allowed, why the others are blocked, and the newest version to install. Blocked developers request a time-bound waiver; Security approves it. Package check → · Waivers →
🧾	Decision Ledger and Audit Log

Policies	Monitoring report

Package check	Decision Ledger

Dashboard	Malware packages

Quick start

Run DepGate on one machine, connect npm, and block your first package. You need Docker Engine with Compose v2. Clone the repository, then:

git clone https://github.com/secmods/depgate.git
cd depgate/deploy/all-in-one
./quickstart.sh

This starts PostgreSQL, Redis and DepGate from their published images; nothing is built. To run an image you built yourself, run docker build -t secmods/depgate:$(node -p "require('./package.json').version") . in the repository root first; the script then uses that image.

Open https://localhost, sign in as the admin account the script printed, and copy the .npmrc snippet from Registry into an empty folder. Then try an install that the starter policies refuse:

npm install [email protected]

The full walkthrough, including trusting the local certificate, is in the Quick start. For a production installation see Install with Docker or Install on Kubernetes, and for hacking on DepGate see Build from source.

How it works

 developers, CI ──▶ DepGate ──▶ public registries, internal registries
                     │
                     ├─ 1. authenticate the token, record who is asking
                     ├─ 2. fetch and cache metadata, rewrite download URLs
                     ├─ 3. gather facts: license, publish date, OSV, EPSS, Scorecard
                     ├─ 4. decide: namespace → exceptions → malware list → policies
                     └─ 5. serve the file, or 403 with the policy, the reason and a Package check link

DepGate can be the only gateway, sit in front of JFrog Artifactory or Sonatype Nexus, or sit behind them as their upstream. How DepGate works explains the request flow and the order of checks. Architecture shows the deployment scenarios.

How DepGate compares

DepGate aims to be the open-source answer to the commercial "repository firewall" products, at a fraction of the moving parts. The table is high level and based on public documentation as of October 2026; open an issue if something is out of date.

	DepGate	Sonatype Nexus Repository + Firewall	JFrog Artifactory + Curation / Xray	Socket Firewall	Verdaccio, devpi, Athens
Open source, self-hosted	✅ MIT	◐ Repository is open source, Firewall is commercial	◐ Artifactory OSS is Maven-only, Curation and Xray are commercial	◐ Free CLI, enterprise is SaaS	✅
Blocks at download time, for every client and CI	✅	✅	✅	◐ wraps the package manager on each machine	❌ proxy only
Ecosystems	8	17+	all Artifactory formats	npm, pip, cargo and a few more	one each
Known-malware blocking	✅ synced feed	✅	✅	✅	❌
Vulnerability rules with CVSS and EPSS	✅	✅	✅	◐	❌
License, release age, release type, OpenSSF Scorecard rules	✅	✅	✅	◐	❌
Monitor mode with an impact report before enforcing	✅	◐	✅	◐ warn	❌
Dependency-confusion (namespace) protection	✅	✅	◐	◐	❌
Developer self-service: Package check and waiver requests	✅	✅	✅	◐	❌
Audit trail of every decision, down to the CI job	✅ Decision Ledger	✅	✅	✅	❌
Heuristic detection of never-seen malware	🚧 roadmap	✅	◐	✅	❌
Works alongside an existing artifact manager	✅ in front of, or behind, Artifactory and Nexus	—	—	✅	◐

✅ has it · ◐ partial, or only in a paid tier · ❌ missing · 🚧 planned

Tech stack

TypeScript end to end.

• Backend: Fastify, TypeORM, PostgreSQL, Redis, SQL migrations
• Web interface: Angular, Angular Material
• Tests: Vitest, Supertest, Playwright, k6
• Deployment: One Docker image serves the API, the registries and the UI

Contributing

DepGate is MIT licensed and built in the open. Bug reports, feature requests and pull requests are welcome.

• Read CONTRIBUTING.md for the development setup, the test commands and the pull-request checklist.
• Report security vulnerabilities privately, as described in SECURITY.md.
• Browse the open issues or start a discussion before a larger change.

If DepGate is useful to you, a ⭐ on GitHub helps other teams find it.

License

MIT