shift

MEDIUM
maintainer japgolly 0 votes scanned 2026-09-17 00:27:14.276658
View on AUR
Why flagged

The package downloads a prebuilt x86_64 Electron/Chromium-based binary application from update.tryshift.com, which is the official vendor update infrastructure for the Shift desktop app (tryshift.com). The binary is installed to /opt/shift and symlinked into /usr/bin, so it executes with user privileges. The sha256sum is pinned, which mitigates tampering risk somewhat. The concern is that this is a closed-source prebuilt binary from a vendor update endpoint (not a GitHub release or official distro mirror), meaning the binary's contents cannot be audited and the update domain could serve different content in future versions. This is a standard AUR pattern for proprietary apps (similar to google-chrome, slack-desktop, etc.) but still carries inherent supply-chain risk from executing an unauditable vendor binary. The cheaper model's 'non-standard host' concern is partially valid — update.tryshift.com is the vendor's own CDN/update server, not a personal or unofficial host, but it is less transparent than a GitHub releases page. Overall this is a legitimate medium: a real supply-chain concern (opaque prebuilt binary from a vendor update endpoint) but not clearly malicious.

Triggered rules

Medium source=() URL on a non-standard host source_untrusted_domain

One or more source=() URLs point to a host outside the trusted allowlist (github.com, gitlab.com, codeberg.org, pypi.org, …).

  • PKGBUILD:9 source=("shift-linux-v$pkgver-stable.zip::https://update.tryshift.com/download/version/$pkgver-stable/linux_32")
Medium AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 72%): The package downloads a prebuilt x86_64 Electron/Chromium-based binary application from update.tryshift.com, which is the official vendor update infrastructure for the Shift desktop app (tryshift.com). The binary is installed to /opt/shift and symlinked into /usr/bin, so it executes with user privileges. The sha256sum is pinned, which mitigates tampering risk somewhat. The concern is that this is a closed-source prebuilt binary from a vendor update endpoint (not a GitHub release or official distro mirror), meaning the binary's contents cannot be audited and the update domain could serve different content in future versions. This is a standard AUR pattern for proprietary apps (similar to google-chrome, slack-desktop, etc.) but still carries inherent supply-chain risk from executing an unauditable vendor binary. The cheaper model's 'non-standard host' concern is partially valid — update.tryshift.com is the vendor's own CDN/update server, not a personal or unofficial host, but it is less transparent than a GitHub releases page. Overall this is a legitimate medium: a real supply-chain concern (opaque prebuilt binary from a vendor update endpoint) but not clearly malicious.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted
1# Maintainer: David Barri <japgolly@gmail.com>
2pkgname=shift
3pkgver=8.0.48
4pkgrel=1
5pkgdesc="Shift is the desktop app for streamlining your accounts, apps, and workflows."
6arch=('x86_64')
7url="https://tryshift.com/"
8license=('custom')
9source=("shift-linux-v$pkgver-stable.zip::https://update.tryshift.com/download/version/$pkgver-stable/linux_32")
10sha256sums=('27ceae03907246e1866f31376806b5daa0c21006177b2fa95f409ac90e3b0f0b')
11
12package() {
13 set -e
14 cd Shift-linux-x64
15
16 mkdir -p "$pkgdir/opt"
17 cp -r . "$pkgdir/opt/shift"
18
19 install -Dm644 LICENSE "$pkgdir/usr/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE"
20
21 mkdir -p "$pkgdir/usr/bin"
22 cd "$pkgdir/usr/bin"
23 ln -s ../../opt/shift/Shift
24}
25

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)SeverityRules
2026-09-17 00:27:14 Medium 2
2026-09-16 00:03:17 Medium 2
2026-09-15 00:25:31 Medium 2
2026-09-14 00:27:57 Medium 2
2026-09-13 00:19:54 Medium 2
2026-09-12 00:25:17 Medium 2
2026-09-11 00:19:22 Medium 2
2026-09-10 00:22:44 Medium 2
2026-09-09 00:04:09 Medium 2
2026-09-08 00:18:08 Medium 2
2026-09-07 00:30:15 Medium 2
2026-09-06 00:17:06 Medium 2
2026-09-05 00:16:27 Medium 2
2026-09-04 00:03:13 Medium 2
2026-09-03 00:15:47 Medium 2
2026-09-02 00:02:31 Medium 2
2026-09-01 00:11:19 Medium 2
2026-08-31 00:19:57 Medium 2
2026-08-30 00:04:14 Medium 2
2026-08-29 00:29:17 Medium 2

Report a package

Reports go to the AURWatch maintainer (one person) and are read by hand. No login required.

0 / 4000
Your suggestion