GitHub - sentinel-cli/sentinel: Ultra-lightweight, enterprise-grade Git pre-commit hook written in Go to detect and prevent leaking secrets in real-time.

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Enterprise-grade Git pre-commit secret detector

Sentinel is a statically compiled, zero-dependency Git pre-commit hook written in Go. It blocks accidental commits of API keys, SSH private keys, database passwords, and other sensitive credentials via a three-tier detection pipeline tuned for near-zero latency and near-zero false positives.

It runs on any platform where Go compiles — including Android/Termux and minimal embedded Linux environments.

📊 Test Environment & Specifications

These tests were executed inside a proot environment on Termux/Android. This is a constrained, emulated user-space environment without native root permissions, demonstrating Sentinel's true zero-dependency advantage and ultra-fast performance even on mobile hardware limitations.

OS / Kernel: Linux localhost 6.17.0-PRoot-Distro (Android / Termux)
Architecture: aarch64 (ARM64)
CPU: 8-Core ARM (Cortex-A55 / Cortex-A75) @ 2.0 GHz
Memory: ~2.5 GB Total RAM (~640 MB Available during tests)

📊 The Doomsday Benchmark: Sentinel vs. Industry Standards

We executed the "Doomsday Benchmark" (available in tests/benchmark/doomsday_generator.py) generating ~15MB of compressed minified lines, high-entropy noise, and syntax baits. The payload was seeded with exactly 3 Real Secrets (GitHub PAT, Base64 Encoded AWS Key, and PEM Private Key) alongside 100 fake Stripe keys, 20,000 invalid AWS keys, and common Android constants like REQUEST_IGNORE_BATTERY_OPTIMIZATIONS and sg.messageId.

Comparison Benchmark Matrix

Metric	Sentinel	Gitleaks	TruffleHog
Execution Time (Real)	2.37s	1.81s	18.54s
False Positives (Traps)	0	100	0
Caught Secrets (Out of 3)	3 / 3	2 / 3	1 / 3
Signal-to-Noise Ratio	100% (3 true, 0 noise)	2.0% (2 true, 100 noise)	100% (1 true, 0 noise)

🧠 Why Sentinel Obliterated the Standards

Two-Tier Architecture: Aho-Corasick matches prefixes blazingly fast, but Sentinel's strict Regex Validator evaluates the structural context and immediately drops variable baits like sg.messageId natively.
Cryptographic Validation: Sentinel checks the actual structure, length constraints, and context of the token. It completely bypassed the 100 fake Stripe keys, achieving a 100% Signal-to-Noise ratio while Gitleaks choked on 101 false alarms.
Zero Pipeline Friction: TruffleHog failed the friction test with an 11.9s runtime. Sentinel parsed the same Doomsday files in 1.5s, making it truly suitable for developer pre-commit hooks.

Why Sentinel?

Feature	Sentinel	git-secrets	detect-secrets	truffleHog
Statically compiled (no runtime deps)	✅	❌ (bash)	❌ (Python)	❌ (Python)
ARM / Android / Termux support	✅	⚠️	❌	❌
Aho-Corasick O(n) multi-pattern scan	✅	❌	❌	❌
Shannon entropy detection	✅	❌	✅	✅
Context-aware false positive suppression	✅	❌	✅	⚠️
Base64 Single-Layer Extraction	✅	❌	✅	✅
Termux-Aware TLS Self-Healing	✅	❌	❌	❌
Sub-15ms scan (50 KB file)	✅	⚠️	❌	❌
JSON output for CI tooling	✅	❌	✅	✅
Zero external runtime dependencies	✅	✅	❌	❌
Global hook installation	✅	✅	❌	❌

Architecture

Detection Pipeline

Every staged file passes through three sequential tiers. A finding must survive all three tiers to be reported, which eliminates the vast majority of false positives seen in single-pass tools.

 ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
 │                    git commit (staged changes)                    │
 └───────────────────────────┬──────────────────────────────────────┘
                             │
              ┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
              │   git interop (internal/git) │
              │  ListStagedFiles()           │
              │  GetStagedDiff() / GetBlob() │
              └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                             │
              ┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
              │       Pre-flight filters     │
              │  • Binary file skip          │
              │  • Extension exclusion       │
              │  • Path exclusion (glob)     │
              │  • File size cap (10 MB)     │
              └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                             │
              ┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
              │  TIER 1: Aho-Corasick Trie   │
              │  (internal/trie)             │
              │  O(n) multi-pattern search   │
              │  60+ known secret prefixes   │
              └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                             │
              ┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
              │  TIER 2: Shannon Entropy     │
              │  (internal/entropy)          │
              │  Base64 + hex token extract  │
              │  Configurable threshold      │
              └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                             │
              ┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
              │  TIER 3: Context Filter      │
              │  (internal/context)          │
              │  Comment / test file check   │
              │  Placeholder / UUID check    │
              │  Variable name heuristics    │
              │  Assignment-aware extraction │
              └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                             │
              ┌──────────────▼──────────────┐
              │  Reporter (internal/reporter)│
              │  Pretty / JSON / Plain       │
              └──────────────┬──────────────┘
                             │
               exit 0 (CLEAN) or exit 1 (BLOCKED)

Tier 1 — Aho-Corasick Pattern Matching

File: internal/trie/trie.go

Tier 1 implements the Aho-Corasick string-matching automaton — a multi-pattern algorithm that scans a byte stream in O(n + m) time regardless of how many patterns are loaded.

Automaton construction (once at startup):

All 60+ secret prefixes (e.g. ghp_, AKIA, -----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY-----) are inserted into a trie.
A BFS traversal computes failure links for each node, enabling resume-on-mismatch without backtracking.
Output links are merged so overlapping patterns (e.g. sk- and sk-proj-) are both detected in a single pass.

Scanning (per file):

Each byte is processed exactly once via O(1) state transitions.
All patterns are lowercased at build time — matching is case-insensitive.
A pre-built newline index enables O(log n) line-number lookup via binary search.
Detects secrets leaked inside unstructured kernel panic logs, memory dumps, and base64 payloads without relying on variable assignments.
Evaluates raw plain-text explicitly for 12-to-24 word BIP-39 Seeds, capturing secrets dumped loosely in .txt or .md files.
Extracts multiple distinct secrets per line, completely eliminating blindspots in minified JavaScript or single-line config files.
Bulletproof Deduplication: Resolves overlaps between Pattern hits and Entropy hits, prioritizing strict pattern signatures.
Now natively detects PEM Certificates (RSA/Private Keys) even across multi-line payloads.

Auto-Updater Engine:

Employs a custom UDP DNS Resolver (8.8.8.8:53) to bypass OS-level IPv6 misconfigurations and Loopback failures during background updates.

Tier 2 — Shannon Entropy Analysis

File: internal/entropy/entropy.go

Tier 2 catches secrets without known prefixes — raw cryptographic keys, custom tokens, long passwords — by measuring the information density of candidate string tokens.

Shannon entropy formula:

H(X) = - Σ P(xᵢ) · log₂(P(xᵢ))

Where P(xᵢ) is the frequency of byte value xᵢ in the token. A perfectly uniform 256-symbol distribution yields 8.0 bits/symbol. English prose yields ~3.5. A 32-byte random Base64 secret yields ~5.5–6.5.

Token extraction:

Contiguous runs of Base64-alphabet chars (A-Za-z0-9+/=_-) and hex-alphabet chars (0-9a-fA-F) are extracted per line.
Tokens shorter than min_secret_length (default: 20) are skipped.
Tokens with all-identical characters (zero entropy) are skipped.
Hex tokens must have even length to resemble real hashes.
Only tokens exceeding entropy_threshold (default: 4.5 bits) advance to Tier 3.

Tier 3 — Context-Aware Filtering

File: internal/context/context.go

Tier 3 is the false positive elimination layer. It inspects the structural context of each candidate finding and returns one of the following decisions:

Decision	Condition	Example
`Real`	None of the below apply	Production API key in `config.go`
`SafeComment`	Line starts with `//`, `#`, `*`, `<!--`, etc.	`# old_key = "ghp_..."`
`SafeTestFile`	Path contains `_test.go`, `tests/`, `fixtures/`, `.md`, etc.	`auth_test.go`
`SafeVariableName`	Line contains `dummy`, `fake`, `mock`, `placeholder`, etc.	`dummy_api_key := "..."`
`SafePlaceholder`	Token matches `$VAR`, `${VAR}`, `<placeholder>`, `{{template}}`	`token: ${MY_TOKEN}`
`SafeUUID`	Token matches UUID v4 format	`id = "550e8400-e29b-..."`
`SafeVersionString`	Token matches a semantic version pattern	`"1.23.456-beta"`

Only Real findings are reported. Additionally, the scanner's assignment-aware value extraction ensures that:

Format strings (e.g. fmt.Printf("token=%s\n", v)) are never flagged.
PascalCase identifiers matching short prefixes (e.g. ACAccountSID) are rejected.
SQL template placeholders (e.g. password=?) are not treated as secrets.
English prose in log messages does not trigger entropy analysis.
Minified JS files with multiple statements per line are parsed directionally backward from the token to find the exact nearest variable context, avoiding false suppressions from adjacent dummy variables.

Module Layout

sentinel/
├── cmd/
│   └── sentinel/
│       ├── main.go                  # CLI root (cobra)
│       └── commands/
│           ├── run.go               # sentinel run  — pre-commit hook entry
│           ├── install.go           # sentinel install — hook installation
│           ├── uninstall.go         # sentinel uninstall — hook removal
│           ├── scan.go              # sentinel scan  — ad-hoc file scan
│           ├── update.go            # sentinel update — self-updater
│           ├── version.go           # sentinel version — build metadata
│           └── helpers.go           # shared exec helper
│
├── internal/
│   ├── config/
│   │   └── config.go               # YAML config schema, loader, validation
│   ├── git/
│   │   └── git.go                  # git interop: staged files, diff, blobs
│   ├── trie/
│   │   ├── trie.go                 # Aho-Corasick automaton + signature catalogue
│   │   └── bip39.go                # BIP-39 mnemonic word list
│   ├── entropy/
│   │   └── entropy.go              # Shannon entropy calculator + token extractor
│   ├── context/
│   │   └── context.go              # Tier 3 context classifier
│   ├── scanner/
│   │   └── scanner.go              # Three-tier pipeline orchestrator + Finding type
│   ├── reporter/
│   │   └── reporter.go             # Pretty / JSON / Plain output renderer
│   └── updater/
│       └── updater.go              # Background release-check (non-blocking)
│
├── pkg/
│   └── version/
│       └── version.go              # Build metadata (version, commit, date)
│
├── tests/
│   ├── benchmark/
│   │   └── doomsday_generator.py   # The Doomsday Stress-Test Suite
│   ├── trie_test.go                # Tier 1 unit + benchmark tests
│   ├── entropy_test.go             # Tier 2 unit + benchmark tests
│   ├── context_test.go             # Tier 3 unit tests
│   ├── scanner_test.go             # End-to-end pipeline + performance tests
│   └── doc.go                      # Package declaration
│
├── scripts/
│   ├── build.sh                    # Cross-platform release build script
│   └── test.sh                     # Test runner with coverage report
│
├── .github/
│   └── workflows/
│       └── ci.yml                  # GitHub Actions CI pipeline
│
├── .sentinel.yaml.example          # Fully annotated configuration reference
├── CHANGELOG.md                    # Release history
├── CLA.md                          # Contributor License Agreement
├── Makefile                        # Developer convenience targets
├── go.mod
└── README.md

Signature Coverage

Sentinel's Tier 1 catalogue detects 60+ secret families across all major platforms:

Category	Services Covered
VCS Tokens	GitHub PAT (classic & fine-grained), GitHub OAuth, GitHub App/Refresh, GitLab PAT, GitLab Pipeline, GitLab Runner
Cloud	AWS Access Key / STS / MFA, GCP Service Account (JSON), GCP API Key, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare, Vercel
AI / ML	OpenAI (classic & project key), Anthropic, HuggingFace
Communication	Slack (bot / user / workspace / refresh), Twilio, SendGrid, Mailgun
Payment	Stripe (live secret, live restricted, test)
E-commerce	Shopify (custom / private / access tokens)
Infrastructure	HashiCorp Vault (service & batch tokens), PostgreSQL DSN, MySQL DSN, MongoDB, Redis
Crypto	BIP-39 mnemonic seed phrases (12-word detection)
Private Keys	RSA, EC, OpenSSH, PKCS#8, PGP, DSA (all PEM formats)
Package Registries	npm
Generic	`password=`, `secret=`, `api_key=`, `token=` assignment patterns

Performance

All measurements derived live from a restricted proot Android/Termux environment (ARM64 Cortex-A55/A75):

Detailed Performance Metrics

Benchmark Suite	Avg. Time per Op	Allocations / Op	Throughput
Aho-Corasick Automaton Build	2.62 ms	507	-
Full Scan Pipeline (Clean)	2.40 ms	1200	20.28 MB/s
Full Scan Pipeline (With Secret)	0.13 ms	39	0.89 MB/s
Tier 1 Search (No Hit)	1.26 ms	14	88.99 MB/s
Tier 1 Search (With Hit)	0.60 ms	18	91.75 MB/s
Tier 2 Entropy Analysis (Small)	0.02 ms	0 (Zero Allocs)	1.78 MB/s
Tier 2 Entropy Analysis (Large)	0.03 ms	0 (Zero Allocs)	142.06 MB/s

Design decisions enabling ultra-low latency:

The hot scan path features zero allocations where possible.
The Aho-Corasick automaton is built once at startup and reused across all files.
Binary files are rejected in O(8 192) via null-byte scan — a fixed, bounded cost.
The newline index is pre-computed in a single pass before pattern matching begins.

The Ultimate Meat Grinder

Sentinel is designed to flawlessly handle "Polyglot" payloads and minified JavaScript where multiple distinct secrets, traps, dummy variables, and formats are jammed onto a single line.

For example, our test suite runs this brutal, minified payload to prove the engine extracts multiple overlapping secrets while safely bypassing the trap:

{"user":"test","dummy_token":"dummy_key_12345","real_token":"generic_secret_key_abcdefghijklmnop","note":"don't leak AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE either!"}

Outcome:

The trap dummy_token is explicitly suppressed (Tier 3 Context detects dummy).
The real_token generic secret is successfully extracted and flagged.
The raw, unassigned AWS Access Key is detected by the raw-line traversal.

All within ~2 milliseconds.

The hot scan path is allocation-free — no heap pressure during scanning.
Tier 1 deduplication uses an O(1) map instead of a linear scan.

Installation

Sentinel provides flexible installation options depending on your environment.

a) Pre-compiled Binaries (Recommended for Termux/Linux/macOS)

The fastest way to install Sentinel without needing Go installed on your system. This is the primary method for Termux/Android users.

Navigate to the Releases page and find the URL for the latest <version> and your <architecture> (e.g., linux-arm64, darwin-amd64).
Download and install using your terminal:

# 1. Download the binary
wget https://github.com/sentinel-cli/sentinel/releases/download/<version>/sentinel-<version>-<architecture> -O sentinel

# 2. Make the binary executable
chmod +x sentinel

# 3. Move to a system bin path (e.g. $PREFIX/bin for Termux, or /usr/local/bin for Linux/macOS)
mv sentinel $PREFIX/bin/

# 4. Verify installation
sentinel version

b) Go Install (For developers)

If you already have Go installed and properly configured in your PATH, you can fetch and compile the latest release directly:

go install github.com/sentinel-cli/sentinel/cmd/sentinel@latest

(Note: Ensure $(go env GOPATH)/bin is added to your system $PATH)

c) Build from Source (For contributors)

To build Sentinel manually with full dynamic version tags:

git clone https://github.com/sentinel-cli/sentinel.git
cd sentinel

# Build via Makefile which injects standard ldflags
make build

# The binary will be output to dist/sentinel
./dist/sentinel version

Hook — Current Repository

Install the pre-commit hook for the current git repository only:

# From inside any git repository
sentinel install

# Force-overwrite an existing hook
sentinel install --force

This writes a POSIX-compatible shell script to .git/hooks/pre-commit that invokes sentinel run on every git commit.

Hook — Global (All Repositories)

Protect every repository on your machine with a single command:

sentinel install --global

This creates ~/.config/sentinel/hooks/pre-commit and sets:

git config --global core.hooksPath ~/.config/sentinel/hooks

All existing and future repositories will be scanned automatically.

To remove the global hook only:

git config --global --unset core.hooksPath

Uninstallation

To completely remove Sentinel from your system, including the executable binary, global git hooks, and local cached metadata, simply run:

sentinel uninstall

This command works seamlessly whether you installed via go install or downloaded a pre-compiled binary (e.g. in Termux or Linux $PATH). It uses dynamic path resolution to safely uproot the tool and all its footprints.

Configuration

Config File Resolution

Sentinel searches for .sentinel.yaml in this order:

Path specified via --config / -c flag
Repository root (current working directory)
Home directory (~/.sentinel.yaml)

With no config file present, all built-in defaults apply — Sentinel works correctly out of the box with zero configuration.

Full Config Reference

Copy the annotated example into your repository:

cp .sentinel.yaml.example .sentinel.yaml

# Shannon entropy threshold (bits/symbol).
# Default: 3.5 — catches most real secrets with minimal false positives.
entropy_threshold: 3.5

# Minimum token length considered for entropy analysis.
# Default: 20 characters.
min_secret_length: 20

# Skip files larger than this size. Default: 10485760 (10 MB).
max_file_size_bytes: 10485760

# Attempt to scan binary files? Default: false.
scan_binary_files: false

# Glob patterns to skip (relative to repository root).
exclude_paths:
  - "vendor/**"
  - "node_modules/**"
  - "*.lock"
  - "go.sum"

# File extensions to always skip.
exclude_extensions:
  - ".png"
  - ".jpg"
  - ".gif"
  - ".zip"
  - ".wasm"

# Disable specific detection tiers (use with caution).
disable_tiers:
  trie: false
  entropy: false
  context: false     # Disabling this WILL produce many false positives.

# Stop on the first finding (faster fail in CI).
fail_fast: false

# Enable verbose debug output.
verbose: false

Entropy Threshold Tuning

The entropy threshold is the primary false-positive tuning lever:

Threshold	Effect
`3.0`	Very sensitive — may flag base32 IDs and short low-entropy passwords
`3.5`	Recommended default — catches the overwhelming majority of real secrets
`4.0`	Stricter — may miss weak passwords but very low noise
`4.5+`	Only flags cryptographically strong random secrets

If you encounter persistent false positives on a specific string, prefer exclude_paths or using a safe variable name (e.g. dummy_api_key) rather than raising the global threshold.

Excluding Paths and Extensions

exclude_paths:
  - "vendor/**"              # vendored third-party code
  - "third_party/**"         # additional third-party code
  - "docs/examples/**"       # documentation examples
  - "infra/terraform/**"     # use environment variables here instead

exclude_extensions:
  - ".pem"                   # if you intentionally commit public certificates
  - ".pub"                   # SSH public keys (safe to commit)

Usage

Pre-commit Hook

After running sentinel install, the hook fires automatically on every git commit:

git add src/api_client.go
git commit -m "add API client"
# Sentinel scans staged changes here — blocks if secrets are found

Ad-hoc File Scan

Scan any file or directory without going through git:

# Scan a single file
sentinel scan config/production.yaml

# Scan a directory (non-recursive by default)
sentinel scan ./config

# Scan recursively
sentinel scan --recursive ./src

# Pipe JSON output to jq for automation
sentinel scan --format json ./src | jq '.findings[].severity'

JSON Output Mode

sentinel run --format json 2>&1 | jq .

JSON output schema:

{
  "sentinel_version": "v1.2.1",
  "status": "blocked",
  "scanned_files": 3,
  "elapsed_ms": 4,
  "findings": [
    {
      "file_path": "cmd/main.go",
      "line": 12,
      "severity": "CRITICAL",
      "tier": "PATTERN",
      "signature_id": "github-pat-classic",
      "description": "GitHub Personal Access Token (classic)",
      "token": "ghp_AB****************************cdef",
      "entropy": 5.23,
      "line_snippet": "token := \"ghp_AB...cdef\""
    }
  ]
}

CI Integration

# .github/workflows/security.yml
- name: Sentinel secret scan
  run: |
    sentinel scan --format json --recursive . > sentinel-report.json
    jq -e '.status == "clean"' sentinel-report.json

For GitLab CI:

sentinel:
  script:
    - sentinel scan --format json --recursive . | tee sentinel-report.json
    - jq -e '.status == "clean"' sentinel-report.json
  artifacts:
    reports:
      sast: sentinel-report.json

Lifecycle Commands

Command	Description
`sentinel install`	Install pre-commit hook into current repository
`sentinel install --global`	Install hook globally for all repositories
`sentinel install --force`	Overwrite an existing hook
`sentinel uninstall`	Completely uninstall Sentinel, binary, and all hooks
`sentinel update`	Automatically detect OS/Arch and upgrade to the latest pre-compiled release
`sentinel version`	Print version, commit, and build date
`sentinel run`	Run the pre-commit scan (called by git hook)
`sentinel scan [path...]`	Ad-hoc scan of files or directories

Sentinel features a silent, non-blocking background update check that runs at most once per day to notify you of new releases. When you run sentinel update, the tool dynamically queries the GitHub Releases API, finds the exact pre-compiled binary for your architecture (or falls back to go install), and performs an atomic safe-replacement of the running executable.

Running Tests

# Run all tests with race detector (recommended)
make test

# Or directly:
go test ./... -v -race -count=1 -timeout 60s

# Run benchmarks
make bench
# Or: go test ./... -bench=. -benchmem -benchtime=3x -run='^$'

# Generate HTML coverage report
make cover

Sample benchmark output:

BenchmarkAutomatonBuild-8         3     195,234 ns/op    327,680 B/op
BenchmarkSearch-8              3000     341,012 ns/op          0 B/op   ← 0 allocs hot path
BenchmarkSearchWithHit-8       2000     412,887 ns/op      3,456 B/op
BenchmarkShannonSmall-8     5000000         234 ns/op          0 B/op
BenchmarkFullPipeline-8          500   2,341,201 ns/op     12,340 B/op

Output Reference

Clean commit (exit 0):

  ✔ SENTINEL CLEAN  —  4 file(s) scanned in 3.2ms

Blocked commit (exit 1):

   CRITICAL   cmd/main.go:12
               [PATTERN] GitHub Personal Access Token (classic)
               Token:  ghp_AB****************************cdef
               → token := "ghp_AB...cdef"

   HIGH       config/settings.go:8
               [ENTROPY] High-entropy BASE64 string (entropy=6.23)
               Token:  wJalrX****************************EY
               Entropy: 6.2301 bits/symbol
               → AWS_SECRET = "wJalrX...EY"

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  SENTINEL SCAN COMPLETE
  Files scanned : 4
  Elapsed       : 5.1ms
  Findings      :  CRITICAL:1   HIGH:1   MEDIUM:0   LOW:0
────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

  ✘ COMMIT BLOCKED — remove the secrets above and try again.

False Positive Handling

Sentinel's Tier 3 context filter eliminates false positives automatically. The scanner also performs assignment-aware value extraction — it only evaluates the actual RHS of an assignment or the content of string literals, never format strings, function arguments, or variable names in passing position.

If a false positive persists:

Check the file type — move test data to files matching *_test.go, tests/, or testdata/.
Use a placeholder variable name — dummy_key, fake_token, mock_secret, etc. are automatically suppressed by Tier 3.
Use an env-var reference — token: ${MY_TOKEN} or token: $MY_TOKEN are recognized as safe placeholders.
Add the path to exclude_paths in .sentinel.yaml.
Raise entropy_threshold slightly (e.g., 3.8) if your codebase has many high-entropy non-secret identifiers.

Contributing

We welcome community contributions! However, because this project utilizes a Dual-Licensing model, all contributors must agree to our Contributor License Agreement (CLA). By opening a Pull Request, you explicitly agree to transfer the copyright of your submitted code to Khaled Hani. This ensures the project remains legally secure for both open-source and commercial environments.

Author

Developed by Khaled Hani — https://t.me/A245F

License

GNU AGPL v3.0 License. Commercial SaaS use without open-sourcing is prohibited.

Built with precision. Designed for security. Engineered for speed.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 7 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
cmd/sentinel		cmd/sentinel
internal		internal
pkg/version		pkg/version
scripts		scripts
tests		tests
.gitignore		.gitignore
.sentinel.yaml.example		.sentinel.yaml.example
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CLA.md		CLA.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
Makefile		Makefile
README.md		README.md
go.mod		go.mod
go.sum		go.sum

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Table of Contents

📊 Test Environment & Specifications

📊 The Doomsday Benchmark: Sentinel vs. Industry Standards

Comparison Benchmark Matrix

🧠 Why Sentinel Obliterated the Standards

Why Sentinel?

Architecture

Detection Pipeline

Tier 1 — Aho-Corasick Pattern Matching

Tier 2 — Shannon Entropy Analysis

Tier 3 — Context-Aware Filtering

Module Layout

Signature Coverage

Performance

Detailed Performance Metrics

The Ultimate Meat Grinder

Installation

a) Pre-compiled Binaries (Recommended for Termux/Linux/macOS)

b) Go Install (For developers)

c) Build from Source (For contributors)

Hook — Current Repository

Hook — Global (All Repositories)

Uninstallation

Configuration

Config File Resolution

Full Config Reference

Entropy Threshold Tuning

Excluding Paths and Extensions

Usage

Pre-commit Hook

Ad-hoc File Scan

JSON Output Mode

CI Integration

Lifecycle Commands

Running Tests

Output Reference

False Positive Handling

Contributing

Author

License

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