Lightweight, static-heuristic AWS IAM policy linter. No network calls, no AWS SDK dependency — just deterministic rules over a parsed policy document. Powered by Shieldly.

npm install @shieldly/iam-lint

Usage

import { lint } from '@shieldly/iam-lint';

const policy = {
  Version: '2012-10-17',
  Statement: [
    { Effect: 'Allow', Action: 's3:*', Resource: '*' },
  ],
};

const findings = lint(policy);
// [
//   { sev: 'high', title: 'Statement 1: Service-wide wildcard "s3:*"', detail: '...' },
//   { sev: 'medium', title: 'Statement 1: Resource "*"', detail: '...' },
// ]

Each finding has a sev (critical | high | medium | info), a title, a detail, and an optional link — when present, a path relative to https://www.shieldly.io with more context (e.g. /iam/iam-passrole explains that specific privilege-escalation path).

CLI

The package ships an iam-lint command for CI and local use:

npx @shieldly/iam-lint policies/*.json
# or, installed globally:
iam-lint --fail-on medium policies/lambda-role.json

Exits 1 when any finding at or above the --fail-on threshold is found (default: high).
Files wrapped in a PolicyDocument key (CloudFormation-style) are unwrapped automatically.
JSON files without a Statement element are skipped, so globbing broadly is safe.

pre-commit hook

Lint IAM policies on every commit with pre-commit:

# .pre-commit-config.yaml
repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/shieldly-io/iam-lint
    rev: v1.1.0
    hooks:
      - id: iam-lint
        files: ^policies/.*\.json$   # scope to your IAM policy files (optional but faster)

Pass CLI flags through args, e.g. args: [--fail-on, medium].

What this checks

Full wildcard actions (Action: "*")
Service-wide wildcard actions (e.g. s3:*)
Privilege-escalation-capable actions (iam:PassRole, iam:CreatePolicyVersion, iam:AttachUserPolicy, and others)
NotAction combined with Allow
Wildcard resources (Resource: "*")
Wildcard principals on resource-based policies (with or without a Condition)
Missing Effect

What this does NOT do

This applies fast, deterministic static rules — it does not reason about how permissions combine across statements, accounts, or services, and it does not resolve variables or evaluate conditions. For that — plus a plain-English explanation and a corrected policy — use Shieldly's AI-Powered analyzer. It's free to try, no signup required for the demo.

This is the same linting logic behind the free browser tool at shieldly.io/tools/iam-policy-linter.

Privacy

This package runs entirely locally — it never makes a network call. Nothing you lint is sent anywhere.

IAM Privilege Escalation Cheat Sheet — every common escalation path on one page, with fixes
Free browser tools — IAM policy linter, trust policy explainer, S3 bucket policy checker, CloudFormation IAM checker, ARN parser, policy diff, CloudTrail least-privilege generator, policy size calculator
Awesome AWS IAM Security — curated list of IAM security tools and references