pkgprobe 0.2.0

pkgprobe

pkgprobe is a Windows-first CLI tool that statically analyzes EXE and MSI installers and produces a machine-readable install plan for endpoint management and packaging workflows.

Think: package intelligence for Intune, SCCM, Jamf, RMM, and Client Platform Engineering teams.

Available on PyPI.

Full usage documentation — Commands, options, output formats, and trace-install behavior.

✨ Why pkgprobe exists

Packaging software on Windows is still more art than science:

• Silent install flags are undocumented or inconsistent
• Installer technologies vary widely (Inno, NSIS, InstallShield, Burn, etc.)
• Detection rules are often copied, guessed, or discovered via trial-and-error
• Testing installers directly is slow and risky on production machines

pkgprobe focuses on the analysis phase first:

Understand what an installer is likely to do --- before you ever run it.

What it does (v0.1)

Given an .msi or .exe, pkgprobe outputs a structured install plan containing:

Installer intelligence

• Detects installer type (MSI, Inno Setup, NSIS, InstallShield, Burn, Squirrel, etc.)
• Confidence-scored classification with supporting evidence

Command inference

• Probable silent install commands, ranked by confidence
• Probable uninstall commands
• Evidence explaining why each command was suggested

Detection guidance

• MSI ProductCode--based detection (when available)
• Follow-up guidance for improving detection accuracy
• Designed to integrate cleanly into Intune / SCCM detection logic

Automation-friendly output

• JSON output suitable for pipelines and tooling
• Human-readable CLI summary for engineers

Safety-first by design
This version performs static analysis only.
No installers are executed.

Example

pkgprobe analyze .\setup.exe --out installplan.json

CLI summary:

Type: Inno Setup (confidence 0.92)

Install candidates:
  setup.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART /SP- (0.88)
  setup.exe /SILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART /SP-     (0.62)

Uninstall candidates:
  unins000.exe /VERYSILENT (0.55)

Generated installplan.json (excerpt):

{
  "installer_type": "Inno Setup",
  "confidence": 0.92,
  "install_candidates": [
    {
      "command": "setup.exe /VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES /NORESTART /SP-",
      "confidence": 0.88
    }
  ]
}

Installation

From PyPI (recommended)

pip install pkgprobe
pkgprobe --version
pkgprobe analyze .\setup.exe --out installplan.json

From source (development)

This project uses uv for fast, reproducible Python environments.

pip install uv
git clone https://github.com/Zeph3r/pkgprobe.git
cd pkgprobe
uv venv
uv sync
uv run pkgprobe --help

Use --quiet / -q to suppress the banner when scripting (CI, pipelines, etc.).

Supported inputs

File type Status Notes

MSI ✅ Metadata parsed via Windows Installer APIs EXE ✅ Heuristic detection via string & signature analysis MSIX / AppX 🔍 Detection hints only (wrapper detection)

How detection works

pkgprobe combines:

• Static string extraction (ASCII + UTF-16LE)
• Known installer signature patterns
• Heuristic confidence scoring
• Evidence tracking (matched strings, metadata clues)

This keeps analysis fast, safe, and explainable.

Current limitations

• Windows-first (intentional --- this targets Windows endpoints)
• EXE analysis is heuristic-based (not guaranteed)
• No execution or sandbox tracing in v0.1
• Detection accuracy improves significantly with runtime tracing (planned)

Roadmap

v0.2.0 (next)

CLI UX

• JSON to stdout -- Support pkgprobe analyze <file> --format json (or -o -) for pipeline consumption
• --summary-only -- Print only human summary (no file output)
• Exit codes -- Standardized scripting-friendly exit codes
• Subcommand examples in --help

Output & format

• --format yaml -- Optional YAML install plan output

Later (v0.3.0+)

• install4j / Java-based installer detection
• Partial-read scanning for very large EXEs
• ProcMon-backed trace mode
• Optional trace-install mode (opt-in, sandboxed)

Who this is for

• Client Platform Engineers
• Endpoint / EUC Engineers
• Intune / SCCM / Jamf admins
• Security teams validating installer behavior
• Anyone tired of guessing silent install flags

Philosophy

pkgprobe is intentionally conservative.

It prefers:

• Explainability over magic
• Confidence scoring over certainty
• Safety over speed

If it can't be confident, it tells you why.

That's how real platform tooling should behave.

License

MIT