v1.35.0: Supply-chain name gates, relocatable virtual store, and richer embedding

This release hardens aube add against typosquats and freshly-registered hallucinated package names, lets you relocate the global virtual store without dragging every other tool's cache along, adds a trust check command for inspecting a version before installing, and expands the aube::embed surface so hosts like mise can own workspace discovery and confirmation prompts.

Highlights

• Supply-chain reputation gates on aube add — new packages are quarantined for 30 days and requested names are challenged against a top-100,000 npm corpus for close lookalikes, with interactive "did you mean?" prompts and fail-closed behavior in CI (#1157).
• Move just the virtual store — a new globalVirtualStoreDir setting plus fixes to the long-broken cacheDir let you relocate the global virtual store onto a fast volume without moving all your metadata caches (#1146).
• Deeper embedding for hosts — workspace discovery, manifest types, and confirmation prompts are now routed through the stable aube::embed facade so embedders can supply their own UI and repo-scoped boundaries (#1154, #1168, #1169).

Added

• Block new and lookalike package names on add (#1157 by @jdx) — Two supply-chain reputation gates now run on public npmjs names, alongside the existing OSV and low-download checks. A minimumPackageAge setting (default 30 days) quarantines newly registered names by checking npm time.created, raising the cost of registering a plausible AI-hallucinated name right before use. A second gate compares the requested name against an embedded, download-ranked top-100,000 npm corpus using bounded Damerau–Levenshtein distance, with scope-aware rules (basenames compared within a scope, full names across scopes). Interactive sessions get "did you mean?" / new-name confirmations; non-interactive contexts fail closed with ERR_AUBE_SIMILAR_PACKAGE_NAME, ERR_AUBE_NEW_PACKAGE_NAME, or ERR_AUBE_PACKAGE_AGE_CHECK_FAILED. --allow-low-downloads now bypasses all three reputation gates and allowedUnpopularPackages exempts a name from the similar-name, age, and download checks.

  # disable the age quarantine for a run
  AUBE_MINIMUM_PACKAGE_AGE=0 aube add some-fresh-package

• aube trust check <package>@<version> (#1144 by @jdx) — Inspect a specific package version's publishing trust status without installing it, with human-readable and JSON reports. --ignore-default-excludes enforces the underlying no-downgrade policy directly. The built-in Hono exception is now scoped to @hono/node-server@1.19.15 (trusted publishing resumed in 1.19.17) so it no longer disables protection for future versions.

• Relocate the global virtual store independently (#1146 by @jdx) — A new globalVirtualStoreDir setting moves only the virtual store tree (the part that must sit on the storeDir volume for hardlinks), leaving packument/metadata caches where they are. It's available via env, .npmrc, and aube-workspace.yaml, and wins over cacheDir when both are set. aube doctor gained a global-virtual-store line, its store line now honors storeDir, and cross-volume fallbacks carry a WARN_AUBE_GVS_CROSS_VOLUME code.

  # move only the virtual store, keep metadata on the system disk
  export AUBE_GLOBAL_VIRTUAL_STORE_DIR=/Volumes/Fast/aube-virtual-store
  export AUBE_STORE_DIR=/Volumes/Fast/stores/aube

• Route embedded confirmations through host handlers (#1154 by @jdx) — Embedding hosts can attach a structured, async InstallPromptHandler so aube confirmations (such as low-download warnings) render through the host's own UI instead of reading process stdin. Prompt waits honor the existing install cancellation token, and a missing handler fails closed. Standalone aube keeps its interactive terminal prompts.

• Configurable workspace discovery for embedders (#1169 by @jdx) — aube::embed now exposes is_workspace_project_root and discover_workspace_packages, plus an opt-in ConfinedToRoot boundary that rejects parent-relative/absolute globs and out-of-root symlinks for repository-scoped hosts. Discovery now expands brace alternates (e.g. {apps,packages}/*) in positive and negative patterns and treats an on-disk workspace YAML as authoritative even when its package list is empty. The default remains pnpm-compatible, still allowing ../**.

• Expose package manifest types from aube::embed (#1168 by @jdx) — PackageJson, Workspaces, and ManifestError are re-exported from the stable embedding facade so hosts get aube's tolerant real-world manifest parsing without depending on aube-manifest directly or duplicating schemas.

Fixed

• Launch native package bins directly (#1141 by @benjaminwestern) — Package bins that point at compiled executables were being handed to Node through generated wrappers and failing. Non-shell aube exec, the local-bin fallback of aube run, and non-shell aube dlx now decode aube-generated POSIX/cmd wrappers, resolve the real target, and launch recognized native binaries (ELF, Mach-O, FAT/FAT64, validated PE, and Windows command suffixes) directly while preserving the wrapper environment, NODE_PATH, arguments, and Unix argv[0]. JavaScript and interpreter-backed bins are unchanged.
• Upgrade catalog-backed dependencies with update --latest (#1166 by @jdx) — Selecting a catalog: dependency in the interactive upgrade picker previously did nothing: resolution reused the unchanged catalog range and reported it as already latest. Catalog entries are now resolved through the registry latest tag and written back to the highest-precedence source (aube-workspace.yaml, pnpm-workspace.yaml, or package.json catalogs), preserving member catalog: references, range prefixes, and YAML comments. --no-save leaves on-disk ranges untouched while still refreshing lockfile resolutions.
• Preserve third-party caches during clean (#1163 by @jdx) — aube clean / purge no longer wipes the whole node_modules/ tree. It now removes only install-managed content (top-level packages plus aube/pnpm-owned hidden entries like .bin, .aube, .pnpm) and leaves unrecognized dotdirs such as Vite's .vite/ and .vite-temp/ in place, matching pnpm. Symlinked/junctioned module directories are still removed wholesale without walking the target.
• Keep foreign-platform optionals in portable lockfiles (#1156 by @jdx) — With supportedArchitectures configured, any command that re-resolved the graph could strip optional packages for other platforms out of pnpm-lock.yaml, aube-lock.yaml, bun.lock, or npm lockfiles, silently making a committed lockfile unusable elsewhere. Portable lockfiles now always resolve every platform variant, while fetch/link still honor the configured architectures so foreign packages stay out of node_modules.
• Accept --lockfile-only on aube list (#1161 by @jdx) — pnpm added list --lockfile-only in v10.23.0 and CI scripts use it, but clap rejected the flag before the command could run. It's now accepted (including the la/ll aliases) as a compatibility no-op, since list already reads exclusively from the canonical lockfile and needs no node_modules.
• Ignore unsupported allowBuilds .npmrc values (#1159 by @jdx) — allowBuilds was incorrectly advertised as an .npmrc source, so a user-level .npmrc allowlist appeared in config get/config list/config explain while install (which reads it only from workspace YAML and the manifest) safely ignored it. Config inspection now filters .npmrc rows to settings that actually declare that source; free-form unknown keys still round-trip.
• Trust locked packages without embedded prompts (#1143 by @jdx) — Packages already present in an active lockfile are now exempt from the low-download popularity gate, so re-adding or bumping a locked dependency doesn't re-trigger the prompt. OSV malicious-package checks stay active, and embedded add_to_project never reads aube's stdin for confirmation.

New Contributors

• @benjaminwestern made their first contribution in #1141

Full Changelog: v1.34.0...v1.35.0

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