- I ask the LLM for multiple options
- I tell it what I need and what I don't need
- I then look at the packages it has suggested. Sometimes LLMs suggest unmaintained packages with 5 downloads a month just because it came at the top of a web search.
- if it's not a very well known project, I look at the code, I have received vibecoded dependency suggestions before that don't even function
LLMs are useful resources for "getting the pulse of the ecosystem", but just pressing enter is crazy.
You say you rely on CC to suggest software to install from the internet, and then you install it.
I haven't heard anyone suggest CC or any LLM as a "filter" for "is this package safe right now", and it seems like a very bad heuristic to me, not only, but also for the reason you gave.
1. Packj (https://github.com/ossillate-inc/packj) detects malicious PyPI/NPM/Ruby/PHP/etc. dependencies using behavioral analysis. It uses static+dynamic code analysis to scan for indicators of compromise (e.g., spawning of shell, use of SSH keys, network communication, use of decode+eval, etc). It also checks for several metadata attributes to detect bad actors (e.g., typo squatting).