Six checks.
Explicit scope.

Verify, extract and inspect

Download the macOS ARM64 archive and SHA256SUMS from the published Core prerelease into the same new directory. Read the versioned installation guide before execution. Checksums detect changed bytes; they do not authenticate the publisher or establish Apple approval.

If macOS blocks execution, stop. This release supplies no quarantine removal, Gatekeeper bypass, re-signing or device-policy override. Downloaded/quarantined first launch is unqualified.

In the directory containing both downloads, this block stops on verification or extraction errors:

(
  set -eu
  awk '$2 == "hammerhead-core_0.2.0-core.1_darwin_arm64.tar.gz" { print; matched++ } END { if (matched != 1) exit 1 }' SHA256SUMS > binary.sha256
  shasum -a 256 -c binary.sha256
  core_extract=$(mktemp -d /tmp/hammerhead-core-install.XXXXXX)
  tar -xzf hammerhead-core_0.2.0-core.1_darwin_arm64.tar.gz -C "$core_extract"
  cat "$core_extract/INSTALL.md"
  "$core_extract/hammerhead-core" version
  "$core_extract/hammerhead-core" --help
)

Expected version: Hammerhead Core version 0.2.0-core.1; reported source base: 4fa1018b13ed4b8b6af194a326105e098dc8118f. Version output also identifies GIT-002: NOT EVALUATED. The published release commit is 4d2ae9725e2eed5ecd3b482550f51686070b8103; this differs from the embedded source-base identity. Review provenance.json for artifact/build details.

To keep the executable, move it into an existing writable bin directory on PATH, preserving its attributes and platform protections. Choose a directory without an existing hammerhead-core file, and retain the package’s license, notices and documentation. No administrator access is needed for a writable prefix. The distinct filename preserves an existing hammerhead installation. Remove only the installed hammerhead-core file to uninstall.

Six included Core rules

GIT-002: NOT EVALUATED. Native Git execution is absent. Advanced Git health, branch/worktree status, tracking/history analysis and Git metadata collection are excluded; no flag or fallback enables them. GIT-001 inspects text only and does not evaluate effective Git ignore behavior.

Usage and exit status

After installation, use a controlled local fixture. Store reports outside the audited tree.

hammerhead-core version
hammerhead-core audit /path/to/project
hammerhead-core audit /path/to/project --quiet
hammerhead-core audit /path/to/project --output json > /path/outside/project/audit.json

Terminal, quiet and JSON reports identify Core scope and omitted GIT-002. Quiet findings go to stdout; status/coverage go to stderr. JSON uses hammerhead-core/v0.2. Read status, policy, granular coverage, diagnostics and truncation together; completion applies only within declared Core scope.

• 0: completed Core work; no Security finding met the selected threshold, or finding failure was disabled.
• 1: completed Core work; a Security finding met the selected threshold (high by default). Hygiene and Info do not trigger exit 1.
• 2: incomplete, failed or cancelled work, invalid input, or output failure. This applies even with --fail-on none.

SIGINT/SIGTERM request cooperative cancellation and retain earlier findings. No guarantee is made that blocked kernel I/O can be interrupted immediately.

Security boundaries

Core reads local filesystem data without executing the target’s code, build tools, package managers, hooks or native Git. Guarded reads, symlink containment and traversal policy are defense in depth, not an OS sandbox. Hard links, mount crossings and filesystem behavior limit containment guarantees.

Tested scope and limitations

Native acceptance is limited to macOS 27.0.1 (26A434) ARM64, built with Go 1.27.1. Older macOS versions, Intel Mac and Linux are unqualified and have no binary assets in this release. Mach-O minimum-load metadata of 13.0 is not an older-macOS support claim.

• Current local files only. No Git history/tracking analysis, dependency/CVE database scan or semantic SAST analysis.
• Filename, header and assignment patterns are heuristics. They do not validate credentials, exposure, pairing, tracking or compromise. License filename presence does not assess legal suitability.
• Archives are not unpacked. Binary content, excluded paths and SEC-001 text files above 5 MiB are outside normal content inspection. FILE-002’s size threshold does not expand content-read budgets.
• Unreadable/changed eligible files, exhausted budgets, cancellation and output failures must be assessed through status and coverage. Exit 0 does not establish repository safety.

The release notes report 225 passing top-level Core tests plus native rebuild and clean-prefix installation checks. Those checks do not qualify Gatekeeper acceptance or full-Git functionality. Full-Git A1-003 remains open and B4 remains blocked. The separate full-Git developer preview and historical v0.1.0 capture remain available.

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