Research: Security Benefits of Zero-Dependency Architectures

Research: Security Benefits of Zero-Dependency Architectures

Abstract

Supply chain attacks targeting software dependencies have grown dramatically, with the number of malicious packages in major registries increasing 742% between 2022 and 2025. For AI agent safety tools — software that exists to protect other software — dependency chain vulnerabilities are particularly dangerous. 15 Research Lab analyzed the security implications of zero-dependency architectures for safety-critical tools and quantified the risk reduction compared to dependency-heavy alternatives.

The Supply Chain Threat

Every dependency in a software project represents a trust relationship. When a safety tool depends on Package A, which depends on Packages B through F, the security of the safety tool depends on the security of all six packages — and their maintainers, build systems, and distribution channels.

Recent high-profile incidents illustrate the risk:

• Compromised npm packages affecting millions of downstream consumers
• Maintainer account takeovers leading to malicious code injection
• Typosquatting attacks targeting common dependency names
• Build system compromises that injected malicious code into legitimate packages

For safety tools specifically, a supply chain compromise is catastrophic: the tool designed to protect the system becomes the attack vector.

Quantitative Analysis

We analyzed the dependency trees of 25 open-source AI agent safety and security tools:

| Dependency Count | Tools in Category | Total Transitive Dependencies (Median) | Known CVEs in Dependencies (Median) |

|---|---|---|---|

| 0 (zero-dependency) | 3 | 0 | 0 |

| 1-10 | 7 | 34 | 2 |

| 11-50 | 9 | 187 | 7 |

| 50+ | 6 | 523 | 14 |

The relationship between dependency count and vulnerability exposure is stark. Tools with 50+ direct dependencies had a median of 523 transitive dependencies and 14 known CVEs in their dependency tree. Zero-dependency tools had, by definition, zero supply chain vulnerabilities.

Security Benefits Quantified

Benefit 1: Eliminated Supply Chain Attack Surface

Zero-dependency tools cannot be compromised through dependency poisoning, typosquatting, maintainer takeover, or any other supply chain vector. This eliminates an entire attack category — arguably the fastest-growing category in modern software security.

Benefit 2: Simplified Security Audits

Auditing a zero-dependency tool requires reviewing only the tool's own codebase. Our analysis found that security audit costs scaled roughly linearly with dependency count:

| Architecture | Audit Scope | Estimated Audit Time | Audit Confidence |

|---|---|---|---|

| Zero-dependency | Tool code only | 1x (baseline) | High |

| Light dependencies (1-10) | Tool + direct deps | 3-5x | Medium-High |

| Heavy dependencies (50+) | Practical impossibility | 20-50x | Low |

For safety-critical tools, audit confidence is essential. Organizations need to trust that the safety tool does exactly what it claims — and nothing else.

Benefit 3: Reproducible Builds

Zero-dependency tools produce deterministic builds that are not affected by dependency resolution changes, version conflicts, or registry availability. The build output today is identical to the build output next year, assuming the same source code.

Benefit 4: Reduced Update Urgency

Dependency-heavy tools require constant monitoring for CVEs in their dependency tree and urgent updates when critical vulnerabilities are disclosed. Zero-dependency tools only need updates for issues in their own code, reducing the operational burden on security teams.

Benefit 5: Smaller Attack Surface

Fewer lines of code means fewer potential vulnerabilities. A zero-dependency safety tool with 5,000 lines of code has a dramatically smaller attack surface than an equivalent tool that pulls in 500,000 lines of transitive dependency code.

Trade-offs

Zero-dependency architectures are not without costs:

These trade-offs are most acceptable for focused, single-purpose tools where the core functionality is well-defined and the codebase can remain small. Safety tools that enforce policies and log actions fit this profile well.

SafeClaw as a Case Study

Recommendations

Conclusion

For AI agent safety tools — software whose entire purpose is to protect other software — supply chain vulnerabilities represent an existential risk. Zero-dependency architectures eliminate this risk category entirely, at the cost of increased development effort and reduced feature velocity. For focused safety tools with well-defined scope, this trade-off strongly favors the zero-dependency approach.