Introducing Chainguard Repository: A unified experience for secure-by-default open source artifacts

Today, we’re introducing Chainguard Repository: a single, Chainguard-managed experience for pulling secure-by-default container images, libraries, OS packages, agent skills, CI/CD workflows, and virtual machine images with built-in, configurable policy enforcement.

Open source is the foundation of modern software. Unfortunately, it is also one of the largest and fastest-growing attack surfaces for enterprises.

In 2025 alone, more than 454,600 new malicious packages flooded npm, PyPI, and Maven Central. That is roughly one per minute. The average container image carries more than 600 known CVEs, and 89% of production containers contain known vulnerabilities. At the same time, AI coding tools and autonomous agents are accelerating development velocity and dramatically increasing the volume of dependencies entering production systems.

Organizations are forced now, even more than before, into a constant balancing act between speed and security. Chainguard Repository is designed to eliminate that tradeoff. It gives engineering teams one trusted source for open source artifacts, with security and compliance enforced automatically at the point of consumption.

One experience. Enforced policies. Continuous security improvement.

Chainguard Repository unifies all Chainguard-built secure-by-default artifacts into a single, trusted experience. Developers and agents gain access to Chainguard Containers, Chainguard Libraries, Chainguard OS Packages, Chainguard Agent Skills, Chainguard Actions, and Chainguard VMs through easy-to-ingest endpoints that also integrate with their existing artifact managers.

Under the hood, every Chainguard-built artifact is built from publicly verifiable source code. Chainguard Repository delivers three core capabilities:

• Automated compliance: Policies, including a cooldown period and license enforcement, ensure enterprise security standards across containers and libraries are met without manual reviews.

• Security embedded into the platform: As Chainguard rebuilds more artifacts from source, risk decreases automatically without requiring developers to change a line of code.

• Clear visibility: Dashboards provide real-time coverage metrics, policy enforcement status, and vulnerability insights across every artifact your organization consumes.

Malware-resistant JavaScript libraries with policy governance

For language dependencies, the most effective way to eliminate malware risk is to rebuild from verifiable source in an isolated, SLSA L3-compliant environment. Across JavaScript, research shows that 99.7% of malware lacks verifiable source code, meaning Chainguard will never build these packages.

We’ve already rebuilt a large percentage of widely used packages, including 88% of the top 500 JavaScript libraries and 73,000+ other npm packages. When developers pull those dependencies through the Chainguard Repository endpoint, they receive Chainguard-built versions with signed provenance and SBOMs.

For libraries that we haven’t built yet, organizations can opt in to fallback to upstream npm libraries with enforced security protections, including a cooldown period and malware detection, when necessary. Up next, we will be enabling more policy types and configuration across multiple artifact types, including:

• CVE blocking to prevent packages with known critical vulnerabilities from being pulled.

• License enforcement to restrict dependencies to approved licenses.

As the Chainguard Factory continues building libraries from verifiable source code at scale, your dependency trees automatically shift from policy-protected upstream artifacts to secure-by-default Chainguard Libraries for JavaScript. Organizations can onboard without any developer friction and benefit from continuously improving protection over time.

Built for the AI era

AI is increasing the scale at which software is written, modified, and deployed. Autonomous agents can generate code, pull dependencies, and interact with open source ecosystems faster than any human team. That amplification benefits defenders and attackers alike.

In this environment, trust must be embedded into the systems that deliver software to developers in the first place. It cannot rely on manual review or after-the-fact scanning. Otherwise, you and your team run the risk of a vulnerability or malicious code injection disrupting your roadmap and business.

Chainguard Repository provides that trusted, secure-by-default foundation. Every developer and agent on your team gains access to a policy-enforced experience that shrinks open source risk across every artifact you rely on Chainguard to manage.

Availability

Chainguard Repository is launching in beta, starting with Chainguard Libraries for JavaScript and expanding to Chainguard Containers in the short term. We will roll out this secure-by-default experience to additional library ecosystems and open source artifacts throughout the year.

Explore Chainguard Libraries for JavaScript today to get early access and be among the first organizations to try it.