Developer laptops are under attack more than ever. Hackers target not just production servers but the machines where code is written.

That’s where Bumblebee comes in. It’s a new open-source tool designed to help security teams find risky packages and extensions on developer machines. It scans quietly, without running dangerous scripts or processes.

Bumblebee was built by Perplexity, a company behind AI tools like the Comet browser and Computer agent. They use it themselves to protect their developers. Now, they’ve shared it publicly so others can use it too.

Why traditional tools miss the mark

Most security tools focus on production environments. They scan build artifacts, repositories, or monitor running processes. But developer laptops are messy. They have dozens of package managers, extensions, and AI configs scattered everywhere.

When a new vulnerability appears, security teams want to know which developer machines are exposed right now. Existing tools don’t answer that well. SBOMs (Software Bills of Materials) and vulnerability scanners only cover code in repositories or builds. EDR (Endpoint Detection and Response) tools watch running processes but don’t check installed developer packages or extensions.

Bumblebee fills this gap. It scans local metadata like lockfiles, package manifests, extension lists, and AI tool configs. This lets security teams see exactly which machines have vulnerable versions installed on disk.

How Bumblebee works without risk

Bumblebee is a read-only scanner. That means it never executes install scripts or lifecycle hooks. It doesn’t call package managers like npm or pip. This design prevents triggering an attack hidden in install scripts.

The tool reads metadata files directly. It supports many ecosystems, including npm, pnpm, Yarn, Bun, PyPI, Go modules, RubyGems, and Composer. It looks at lockfiles and installed package metadata, such as package-lock.json and go.sum files.

It also scans AI agent configs based on MCP (Model Context Protocol). These include JSON files like mcp.json and Gemini CLI settings. Bumblebee reads editor extensions from VS Code and similar editors. Browser extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and others are covered too.

Each scan is a one-shot run. It outputs results as newline-delimited JSON, making it easy to integrate with existing security workflows or automation tools.

Fitting into security workflows

Perplexity uses Bumblebee in a five-step process. When a new threat is reported, a catalog of vulnerable packages or extensions is updated. This catalog goes through human review and is merged. Then Bumblebee scans developer machines against this catalog.

Security teams get a clear list of exposed machines, including details like hostname, OS, package name, version, and confidence level in the match. This traceability helps explain why a developer should update or remove a tool.

Bumblebee supports three scan profiles. The baseline profile covers common package roots and extensions for routine checks. The project profile focuses on specific development directories. The deep profile sweeps entire home directories for incident response.

Because it’s open source and written in Go with no outside dependencies, teams can trust it and customize it to their needs.

Why developer endpoints matter more

Attackers now target developer machines first. They look for stolen credentials, tokens, and access keys. Developer tools like extensions and AI agents can be attack vectors too.

Recent incidents showed how attackers hijacked npm packages using stolen credentials and valid certificates. They pushed malicious versions that spread quickly through developer environments. Some VS Code extensions were compromised, exposing secret tokens and sensitive configs.

These attacks bypass traditional protections because they live in developer tooling, not just production code. Monitoring the developer’s environment itself is key to stopping these supply-chain threats early.

Tools like Bumblebee offer security teams a way to keep tabs on this ever-growing attack surface. They help answer one simple question fast: which developer machines are at risk right now?

By bringing this tool to the community, Perplexity hopes more teams will treat developer laptops as a critical security frontier, not an afterthought.