Security

Supply chain security

repomatic implements most of the practices described in Astral’s Open Source Security at Astral post, baked into a drop-in setup that any maintainer can inherit by pointing their workflows at the reusable callers.

Astral practice	How repomatic covers it
Ban dangerous triggers (pull_request_target, workflow_run)	The lint-workflow-security job runs zizmor on every push: see .github/workflows/lint.yaml
Minimal workflow permissions	check_workflow_permissions parses every workflow file and warns when a custom-step workflow omits the top-level permissions key
Pinned actions	All uses: refs pinned to full commit SHAs (with the semver tag preserved as a trailing comment) via Renovate’s helpers:pinGitHubActionDigestsToSemver preset: see renovate.json5
No force-pushes to main	check_branch_ruleset_on_default verifies an active branch ruleset exists, and the setup guide walks users through creating one
Immutable release tags	check_immutable_releases verifies GitHub immutable releases is enabled, and the release workflow rewrites @main refs to @vX.Y.Z during freeze: see tagged workflow URLs
Dependency cooldowns	Renovate stabilization windows (minimumReleaseAge) and uv --exclude-newer, with a per-package escape hatch for CVE fixes: see renovate.json5 and Renovate cooldowns
Trusted Publishing	PyPI uploads via uv publish with no long-lived token: see the publish-pypi job in .github/workflows/release.yaml
Cryptographic attestations	Every binary and wheel is attested to the workflow run that built it via attest-build-provenance: see the Generate build attestations steps in .github/workflows/release.yaml
Checksums in installer scripts	The update-checksums CLI command regenerates SHA-256 checksums on every release, invoked from .github/workflows/renovate.yaml when upstream action versions change
Fork PR approval policy	check_fork_pr_approval_policy warns when the policy is weaker than first_time_contributors, and the setup guide ships a pre-filled gh api one-liner to fix it

Warning

Known gap: multi-person release approval. Astral gates releases behind a dedicated GitHub deployment environment with required reviewers, so that a single compromised account cannot publish. repomatic does not enforce this, but if the repository has multiple maintainers, I recommend adding an environment: release key to the publish-pypi and create-release jobs in a downstream caller workflow and configuring required reviewers on that environment in repo settings.

Permissions and token

Several workflows need a REPOMATIC_PAT secret to create PRs that modify files in .github/workflows/ and to trigger downstream workflows. Without it, those jobs silently fall back to the default GITHUB_TOKEN, which lacks the required permissions.

After your first push, the setup-guide job automatically opens an issue with step-by-step instructions to create and configure the token.

Concurrency and cancellation

All workflows use a concurrency directive to prevent redundant runs and save CI resources. When a new commit is pushed, any in-progress workflow runs for the same branch or PR are automatically cancelled.

Workflows are grouped by:

• Pull requests: {workflow-name}-{pr-number} — Multiple commits to the same PR cancel previous runs

• Branch pushes: {workflow-name}-{branch-ref} — Multiple pushes to the same branch cancel previous runs

release.yaml uses a stronger protection: release commits get a unique concurrency group based on the commit SHA, so they can never be cancelled. This ensures tagging, PyPI publishing, and GitHub release creation complete successfully.

Additionally, cancel-runs.yaml actively cancels in-progress and queued runs when a PR is closed. This complements passive concurrency groups, which only trigger cancellation when a new run enters the same group — closing a PR doesn’t produce such an event.

Tip

For implementation details on how concurrency groups are computed and why release.yaml needs special handling, see the repomatic.github.actions module docstring.

AV false-positive submissions

Compiled Python binaries (built with Nuitka --onefile) are frequently flagged as malicious by heuristic AV engines. The onefile packaging technique (self-extracting archive with embedded Python runtime) triggers generic “packed/suspicious” signatures. This is a known issue across the Nuitka ecosystem.

The scan-virustotal job in release.yaml uploads all compiled binaries to VirusTotal on every release. This seeds AV vendor databases to reduce false positive rates for downstream distributors (Chocolatey, Scoop, etc.).

When a release is flagged, the /av-false-positive skill generates per-vendor submission files with pre-written text and form field mappings. The vendor details below document the process for manual reference.

Vendor portals

Vendor	Engines covered	Portal	Format	Turnaround
Microsoft	Microsoft	WDSI file submission	One file per form, 1900 char limit on additional info	Fastest
BitDefender	BitDefender, ALYac, Arcabit, Emsisoft, GData, MicroWorld-eScan, VIPRE	bitdefender.com/submit	One file per form, screenshot mandatory	Fast
ESET	ESET-NOD32	Email to samples@eset.com	Single email, password-protected ZIP (infected), ~24 MB limit	Reliable
Symantec	Symantec	symsubmit.symantec.com	Hash submission only (no .exe/.bin upload), one hash per form, 5000 char limit	3-7 business days
Avast/AVG	Avast, AVG	avast.com/submit-a-sample	One file per form, shared engine	Medium
Sophos	Sophos	sophos.com filesubmission	One file per form, 25 MB max per submission	Up to 15 business days

Submission priority

Submit in this order to maximize impact:

1. Microsoft: most influential engine. ML detections (Sabsik, Wacatac) have the broadest downstream effect.

2. BitDefender: powers ~6 downstream vendor engines. Highest detection-removal-per-submission ratio.

3. ESET: email-based channel with no portal dependency. The most reliable submission path.

4. Symantec: ML detections (ML.Attribute.*) may take longer to process.

5. Avast/AVG: shared engine, so one submission covers both.

6. Sophos: PUA detections require justification of the software’s legitimate purpose.

Submission content

Every false-positive submission should include:

• The binary’s VirusTotal report link.

• VirusTotal links for the clean .whl and .tar.gz source distributions (as comparison evidence).

• The GitHub release link and direct download URL for the binary.

• Project homepage and PyPI URL.

• License from pyproject.toml.

• Reference to any prior false-positive issue in the repository.

All submission text should mention that the binary is compiled with Nuitka --onefile from an open-source project.

Known portal issues

• Microsoft: CORS errors or stuck progress modals during upload (auth session expiring). Workaround: sign out, clear cookies for microsoft.com, sign back in, submit immediately.

• BitDefender: form sometimes returns “Your request could not be registered!” with no details. Retry later.

• Avast: form sometimes returns “An internal error occurred while sending the form.” Retry later.