Use this checklist to audit potential providers or to benchmark your own catalog’s feature set against 2026 market expectations.

Need to learn more about curated catalogs?  Read our primer blog here.

1. Security & Vetting Depp

  • Reachability Analysis:

Does the catalog distinguish between a “vulnerable library” and a “vulnerable library that is actually being called by the application code”? 

  • Automated Fuzzing:

Are the packages continuously fuzzed for memory-safety issues and zero-days beyond just matching known CVEs?

  • Vulnerability Backporting:

When an upstream maintainer refuses to patch a vulnerability, does the catalog provider provide their own “hardened” and backported patch?

  • Malicious Commit Detection:

Does the provider analyze commit history for “social engineering” patterns (e.g., sudden changes in maintainers or suspicious code obfuscation)?

2. Supply Chain Transparency (SBOM & SLSA)

  • Dynamic SBOM Generation:

Does it provide a real-time, downloadable SBOM in CycloneDX or SPDX format for every package?

  • SLSA Level 3+ Compliance:

Are the packages built in a “hermetic” environment to ensure the code you download is exactly what was audited?

  • VEX Support:

Does the catalog provide Vulnerability Exploitability eXchange (VEX) statements to reduce “false positive” alerts for your security team?

3. Integration & Developer Experience

  • Native IDE Integration:

Can developers search and pull from the secure catalog directly within VS Code or JetBrains without leaving their workflow?

  • Policy-as-Code Gates:

Can the catalog integrate with CI/CD (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) to automatically block any package that falls out of compliance?

  • Hallucination Protection:

Does it include guardrails to prevent developers from accidentally installing non-existent or AI-hallucinated packages suggested by coding assistants?

4. Governance & Compliance

  • License Legal Guard:

Does it provide a “Legal Verdict” for every package to ensure it aligns with your corporate risk tolerance (e.g., blocking GPL in commercial products)?

  • NIST 800-218 Alignment:

Does the provider provide a documented “Assurance Case” for each package to simplify federal compliance audits?