x16-prompt

maintainer bcc · 0 votes · scanned 2026-08-03 00:08:14.047287

MEDIUM

Why flagged The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt AppImage binary from download.16x.engineer, which is the vendor's own distribution host for this proprietary AI coding tool (16x Engineer/16x Prompt). The host is not a well-known, widely-audited mirror, but it is the official vendor download endpoint matching the product URL (prompt.16x.engineer). More critically, the sha256sums entry contains '6df64a6d219a93080f0fc06e81c7de00' which is a 32-character MD5 hash, not a SHA-256 hash (which should be 64 hex characters). This means the integrity check is effectively broken/wrong — sha256sums with an MD5-length value will cause makepkg to fail or silently not verify correctly. The AppImage is installed as an executable binary at /opt/x16-prompt/16x-prompt and symlinked into /usr/local/bin, so it runs with user privileges. The combination of: (1) a prebuilt closed-source binary from a personal/small-vendor host, (2) a malformed/incorrect checksum that provides no real integrity guarantee, constitutes a genuine medium supply-chain risk — if the host is compromised or serves a different binary, there is no effective verification. This is not clearly malicious but is a real concern.

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:13 source=("${_appimage_name}::https://download.16x.engineer/16x+Prompt-${pkgver}.AppImage")

MEDIUM AI review llm_review

An AI model (anthropic/claude-4.6-sonnet-20260217) reviewed this and agrees it is MEDIUM (confidence 82%): The PKGBUILD downloads a prebuilt AppImage binary from download.16x.engineer, which is the vendor's own distribution host for this proprietary AI coding tool (16x Engineer/16x Prompt). The host is not a well-known, widely-audited mirror, but it is the official vendor download endpoint matching the product URL (prompt.16x.engineer). More critically, the sha256sums entry contains '6df64a6d219a93080f0fc06e81c7de00' which is a 32-character MD5 hash, not a SHA-256 hash (which should be 64 hex characters). This means the integrity check is effectively broken/wrong — sha256sums with an MD5-length value will cause makepkg to fail or silently not verify correctly. The AppImage is installed as an executable binary at /opt/x16-prompt/16x-prompt and symlinked into /usr/local/bin, so it runs with user privileges. The combination of: (1) a prebuilt closed-source binary from a personal/small-vendor host, (2) a malformed/incorrect checksum that provides no real integrity guarantee, constitutes a genuine medium supply-chain risk — if the host is compromised or serves a different binary, there is no effective verification. This is not clearly malicious but is a real concern.

PKGBUILD

1 offending line(s) highlighted

      1# Maintainer: Ben Copeland <ben@copeland.me.uk>
    
      2pkgname=x16-prompt
    
      3pkgver=0.0.138
    
      4pkgrel=1
    
      5pkgdesc="16x Prompt (AppImage version) - an AI coding tool by 16x Engineer"
    
      6arch=('x86_64')
    
      7url="https://prompt.16x.engineer/"
    
      8license=('unknown')
    
      9depends=('zlib' 'hicolor-icon-theme')
    
      10options=(!strip)
    
      11
    
      12_appimage_name="16x+Prompt-${pkgver}.AppImage"
    
      13source=("${_appimage_name}::https://download.16x.engineer/16x+Prompt-${pkgver}.AppImage")
    
      14sha256sums=('6df64a6d219a93080f0fc06e81c7de00')
    
      15
    
      16package() {
    
      17  install -d "${pkgdir}/opt/${pkgname}"
    
      18
    
      19  install -Dm755 "${srcdir}/${_appimage_name}" "${pkgdir}/opt/${pkgname}/16x-prompt"
    
      20
    
      21  install -d "${pkgdir}/usr/local/bin"
    
      22  ln -s "/opt/${pkgname}/16x-prompt" "${pkgdir}/usr/local/bin/16x-prompt"
    
      23
    
      24  install -d "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications"
    
      25  cat <<EOF > "${pkgdir}/usr/share/applications/${pkgname}.desktop"
    
      26[Desktop Entry]
    
      27Name=16x Prompt
    
      28Comment=${pkgdesc}
    
      29Exec=/opt/${pkgname}/16x-prompt %U
    
      30Terminal=false
    
      31Type=Application
    
      32Icon=16x-prompt
    
      33Categories=Development;Utility;
    
      34StartupNotify=true
    
      35EOF
    
      36
    
      37}
    
      38

Scan history

Scanned at (UTC)	Severity	Rules
2026-08-03 00:08:14	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-02 00:16:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-08-01 00:11:18	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-31 00:14:10	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-30 00:17:23	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-29 00:25:53	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-28 00:07:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-27 00:24:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-26 00:07:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-25 00:13:44	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-24 00:02:28	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-23 00:14:47	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-22 00:29:32	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-21 00:24:15	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-20 00:19:49	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-19 00:17:08	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-18 00:14:48	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-17 00:06:16	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-16 00:05:41	MEDIUM	2
2026-07-15 00:09:25	MEDIUM	2