mallcop

Open-source security monitoring for small cloud operators. AI-native. Go.

mallcop is a Go-native security monitoring CLI. It ingests your cloud and SaaS audit events, runs 17 deterministic detectors that look for real-world attack patterns, then drives each finding through an LLM-backed investigation cascade (triage → investigate → deep panel → committee consensus) before paging a human. Findings and decisions are written to a git-native store, so every verdict is durable, replayable, and auditable. mallcop reads one file — mallcop.yaml — and needs zero flags for the common path.

Install

One line (Linux & macOS):

curl -fsSL https://mallcop.app/install.sh | sh

Downloads the prebuilt binary for your platform, verifies its checksum, and installs it to /usr/local/bin or ~/.local/bin (no sudo).

Go toolchain:

go install github.com/mallcop-app/mallcop/cmd/mallcop@latest

Release binaries:

Pre-built binaries for Linux (amd64/arm64) and macOS (Apple Silicon) are attached to each GitHub release. Download the archive for your platform, extract, and place mallcop on your PATH.

Quickstart

1. Install mallcop (see above).

2. Initialize:

mallcop init

mallcop init: created <dir>/mallcop.yaml (config — offline inference)
mallcop init: created <dir>/store/ (findings store)
mallcop init: created <dir>/events.jsonl (sample events)

Next steps:
  1. Run the scan (reads mallcop.yaml — no flags needed):
       mallcop scan
  2. Add a source: edit mallcop.yaml -> connectors:
     (a github org, or a cloud source like aws/azure)
  3. For managed LLM resolution (offline is the fail-safe default):
       mallcop init --pro  &&  export MALLCOP_API_KEY=mallcop-sk-...

init writes the one file mallcop reads (mallcop.yaml), a git-backed store/ for findings + decisions, and a sample events.jsonl so the next step runs with zero credentials. Re-running init is a no-op — it never overwrites a file that already exists.

3. Run the scan — no flags:

mallcop scan

Scan complete
  Events scanned:     1
  Findings detected:  2
  Escalated:          2
  Resolved:           0

scan discovers mallcop.yaml, reads its connectors:/store:/inference: settings, runs the detector fleet, drives each finding through the cascade, and commits findings + decisions into store/. With no inference endpoint configured (the OSS default), every finding force-escalates — the documented fail-safe — so the sample scan above runs end to end with zero credentials. Exit code 1 means findings were detected, not that the scan failed.

(The old flag-only invocation — mallcop scan --events events.jsonl --store store — still works and takes precedence over the config for any flag you pass explicitly. Flags exist for scripting; mallcop.yaml is the primary path.)

4. Add a source. Edit mallcop.yaml's connectors: list directly, or use the config primitive:

mallcop config set connector --kind=github --id=my-org --org=my-org

5. (Optional) Enable managed LLM resolution. mallcop init --pro points mallcop.yaml at the donut rail (Forge-managed inference); set your key and re-scan:

mallcop init --pro
export MALLCOP_API_KEY=mallcop-sk-...
mallcop scan

BYOK/BYOI (your own vendor URL + key) works the same way — set inference.endpoint/inference.key_env in mallcop.yaml (inference.mode is a label, e.g. byoi; endpoint+key_env are what the scan actually resolves), or the MALLCOP_INFERENCE_URL/MALLCOP_API_KEY env pair, which always wins over the config.

6. Inspect what was recorded:

mallcop status --store store

Store:      store
Findings:   2 recorded
Decisions:  2 recorded
State:      idle

status's "Decisions" is every resolution ever recorded in the store (escalations included) — not the same number as scan's per-run "Resolved" line above, which counts only that run's non-escalate (auto-resolved) findings. A store can show decisions recorded even when its last scan resolved none of them itself — both got escalated to a human instead.

Deploy as a repo (scheduled, unattended scanning)

mallcop init --create-repo owner/name turns the local scaffold above into a customer-owned deployment repo, pushed to a real GitHub repo, that scans on a schedule without you running anything locally:

export MALLCOP_GITHUB_TOKEN=$(gh auth token)   # or your own --github-token-env
mallcop init --create-repo my-org/my-mallcop --pro

What gets scaffolded, on top of mallcop.yaml/store//events.jsonl:

• go.mod pinning github.com/mallcop-app/mallcop at a specific release tag (--mallcop-version, default: latest) — a THIN-EMBED dependency pin, never a fork or vendored copy.
• detectors/ — write your own detector here as a Go package (package main, one subdirectory per detector); the scheduled Action builds each one to a wasip1/wasm module under detectors/bin/, and mallcop scan loads it exactly like a built-in framework detector via detectors.sidecars.dir. See detectors/README.md (scaffolded into the repo) and examples/sidecar-detector in this repo for a worked example.
• connectors/ — write your own connector as a standalone Go binary (same shape as the shipped sibling connectors below) and point mallcop.yaml's connectors: at it with kind: cloud. See connectors/README.md (scaffolded into the repo).
• .github/workflows/scan.yml — runs on a schedule: installs the pinned prebuilt mallcop release binary (never rebuilds the core binary from repo content), builds any detectors/* to .wasm, runs mallcop scan, and pushes the resulting store/ history back to this same repo on a dedicated mallcop-findings branch (kept off main by .gitignore) so findings persist across ephemeral runner instances.

The core binary is always the pinned prebuilt release; only your own detectors/* ever compile from repo content, and only to wasip1/wasm. You never need a local Go toolchain to run the deployment — only to author a new detector or connector for it.

The autonomy dial

learning.autonomy in mallcop.yaml controls how much of mallcop's own self-extension loop applies automatically, versus waiting for you:

mallcop config set autonomy semi   # non | semi | fully

Setting	DATA changes (tuning/mapping widen)	CODE changes (authored detectors/connectors)
non (default)	wait for human approval	wait for human approval
semi	auto-apply on a gate-GREEN clean widen	wait for human approval
fully	auto-apply on a gate-GREEN clean widen	auto-apply on a gate-GREEN clean widen

Every proposal — data or code — still has to pass the same gate first (see below); the dial only decides what happens to a result that already passed. Contribute-back to the shared OSS pool is never auto-merged at any setting — an opt-in PR to the upstream mallcop repo always waits for human/maintainer review, regardless of where the dial is set.

Code-first: authored detectors and connectors

New detection/connection surface is AI-written Go code, gated, never a declarative spec interpreted by a generic loader. Both proposal shapes — a new detector or a data widen (tuning/mapping) — go through the same validate-proposal gate before anything lands:

(1) guard        — static invariant guard: protected paths (the committee,
                    consensus logic) are untouchable; YAML data may only
                    WIDEN what's seen, never narrow or add a suppress rule
(2) structural    — the change builds; authored code passes the import
                    allow-list (no net/file/exec in a detector)
(3) exam-detect   — base vs. head labeled-exam comparison: no regression,
                    at least one closed detection gap, no undeclared new
                    firings on the benign corpus

Run it yourself against any diff:

mallcop validate-proposal --base <ref> --head <ref> --json

A rejected result never touches the committee or the consensus vote — mallcop only ever widens what the detection committee sees; it can never learn to suppress or auto-approve a real attack pattern.

Chat-driven reconfiguration

Every mallcop config set ... primitive (connector, autonomy) is the same mutation surface a chat interface drives in the hosted product (mallcop-pro): "watch our Linear activity" or "turn on auto-apply for data changes" resolves to a propose → approve → apply step that calls the identical core/config mutation this CLI calls directly. There is no separate code path for chat versus the command line.

Commands

Command	Purpose
mallcop scan	Full agentic scan: connect → detect → cascade → store. Reads mallcop.yaml when present; --store/--events/etc. override or substitute for it.
mallcop detect	Offline detection only. Reads events JSONL on stdin, writes findings JSONL on stdout. No inference key.
mallcop init	Scaffold mallcop.yaml + a findings store + sample events; --create-repo also scaffolds and pushes a deployment repo.
mallcop status	Report findings/decisions recorded in a store. Requires --store.
mallcop config	Print the effective scan config resolved from mallcop.yaml + the environment.
mallcop config set	Mutate mallcop.yaml (connector, autonomy) via a strict, atomic-write primitive.
mallcop feedback	Record an operator decision (approve/dismiss) on a finding so future scans honor it.
mallcop validate-proposal	Run the free-tier self-extension gate over a proposal diff (guard + structural + exam-detect).
mallcop collect	Mine a scan's store for coverage gaps — the self-extension feedstock.
mallcop exam-detect	Grade the offline detect layer against the labeled exam corpus.

mallcop scan

# Zero-flag (reads mallcop.yaml from the current dir or an ancestor)
mallcop scan

# File connector, explicit flags (no config needed)
mallcop scan --events events.jsonl --store store

# GitHub connector (built into the core binary): scan a GitHub org's audit log
export GITHUB_APP_ID=...
export GITHUB_APP_PRIVATE_KEY=...      # PEM, or a path to it
export GITHUB_INSTALLATION_ID=...
mallcop scan --connector github --github-org my-org --store store

Flags: --config (explicit mallcop.yaml path), --store, --events (file path or - for stdin), --connector (file | github), --github-org, --baseline, --tuning, --learned-mappings, --max-findings, --workers, --json, --base-url. Precedence is flag > env > mallcop.yaml > built-in default; an absent config leaves today's flag-only behavior unchanged.

Exit codes: 0 no findings, 1 findings present, 2 scan failure.

Architecture

mallcop scan
  → connector        — fetch/ingest audit events (file, github, or a
                        standalone cloud-connector binary)
  → detectors        — 17 built-in deterministic detectors + any
                        configured wasip1/wasm sidecar detectors
  → cascade          — triage → investigate → deep panel → committee consensus
  → git store        — durable, replayable findings + decisions

The cascade resolves each finding through escalating tiers and ends in a committee consensus vote: on every RESOLVE, the gate re-runs the cascade and any-escalate-wins — a safety-first, asymmetric policy because a missed attack (false negative) is catastrophic while an over-escalation merely pages a human. The 17 built-in detectors are embedded in the binary; authored detectors extend that fleet as sidecars (above) without ever touching the committee/consensus code the guard protects.

Connectors

The core binary ships two built-in connectors:

• file (default) — reads normalized event JSONL from --events or mallcop.yaml's connectors: (kind: file).
• github — pulls a GitHub org's audit log directly, using GITHUB_APP_ID / GITHUB_APP_PRIVATE_KEY / GITHUB_INSTALLATION_ID.

Additional connectors ship as standalone binaries in the sibling repo mallcop-app/mallcop-connectors, wired into mallcop.yaml as kind: cloud, or piped directly:

# install the AWS connector and name it per mallcop's exec convention
go install github.com/mallcop-app/mallcop-connectors/cmd/aws@latest
mv "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/aws" "$(go env GOPATH)/bin/mallcop-connector-aws"

mallcop-connector-aws --since 2026-07-01T00:00:00Z \
  | mallcop scan --events - --store store

Currently shipped standalone connectors: AWS CloudTrail, Azure Activity Log, GCP Cloud Logging, GitHub Audit Log, M365 Management Activity, Okta System Log.

Not yet ported: container_logs, supabase, vercel.

Your own connector for a source not listed above is a standalone Go binary you author (same shape as the shipped ones — see the "Deploy as a repo" section) and wire in via kind: cloud; there is no declarative connector-spec format — a connector is always real code.

Detectors

17 deterministic detectors run on every scan (and via mallcop detect):

auth-failure-burst       config-drift            dependency-tamper
exfil-pattern            git-oops                injection-probe
log-format-drift         malicious-skill         new-actor
new-external-access      priv-escalation         rate-anomaly
secrets-exposure         unusual-login           unusual-resource-access
unusual-timing           volume-anomaly

Content-only detectors (e.g. injection-probe, secrets-exposure, git-oops, config-drift, dependency-tamper, malicious-skill) fire without any history. The baseline-dependent detectors (new-actor, priv-escalation, unusual-login, unusual-timing, volume-anomaly, rate-anomaly, exfil-pattern) use an optional --baseline JSON file for historical context.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.