Changelog

July 4, 2026 · View on GitHub

All notable changes to Argos are documented in this file. Format follows Keep a Changelog. Versioning follows Semantic Versioning.

[2.1.1-beta] — 2026-07-04

Robustness fixes for setup.sh: the script no longer aborts (or misbehaves) outside the happy path — missing repo directory, missing standard folders, empty source directories, non-interactive execution. Repo hygiene: ShellCheck CI, .idea/ untracked, internal notes removed.

Added

.github/workflows/shellcheck.yml

New CI workflow: ShellCheck (severity warning and above) runs on setup.sh, all launcher scripts, background.sh and the test script on every push to master and on pull requests.

docs/SECURITY.md

New security policy: how to report vulnerabilities, supported versions, and scope notes (third-party tools are reported upstream).

Changed

README.md

OSINT and General Tools tables sorted alphabetically.
Status badges added under the title: ShellCheck CI, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS platform.
New mascot displayed at 2.5x size with natural aspect ratio; float cleared before the Contents heading so section dividers no longer cross it.

multimedia/images/

The Argos mascot (scribblenauts-argos.png) replaced with a new illustration inspired by the original "Scribblenauts Argos" icon by Miguel Ángel Aranda. Attribution updated in License.md and multimedia/images/license.txt.

Fixed

setup.sh

Startup guard: the script now verifies that the repository exists at ~/Downloads/Argos and exits with a clear error message if not, instead of dying mid-run with a cryptic line-number error. The path is stored in a single ARGOS_SRC variable used throughout (support files, Firefox policies.json).
~/Templates is now created with mkdir -p before copying templates. On systems where xdg-user-dirs has not populated the standard folders, the copy previously aborted the whole install.
All support-file copies (scripts, icons, .desktop shortcuts, templates, wallpapers) are now guarded with compgen -G: an empty source directory logs a warning and skips the step instead of aborting under set -e. The wallpaper step also checks that background.sh exists before running it.
/etc/apt/keyrings is now created before writing the VSCodium signing key. On a clean Ubuntu 24.04 the directory is not guaranteed to exist, and its absence caused VSCodium to be silently skipped.
The final reboot prompt now runs only in an interactive session ([ -t 0 ]). Without a TTY, read returned immediately and the machine rebooted with no confirmation; the script now prints a notice and leaves the reboot to the user.

scripts/recon-ng.sh

The launcher now uses its RECONNG variable instead of a literal relative path (the variable was defined but never used — flagged by ShellCheck SC2034).

Removed

Repository hygiene

.idea/ (JetBrains IDE files, including workspace.xml) removed from git tracking; it was already gitignored but still committed.
scripts/changes.txt and shortcuts/changes.txt removed: internal work notes superseded by this changelog.

Repository administration (GitHub side)

Issues re-enabled on the repository: they had been turned off, contradicting the README's "open an issue" instruction.
GitHub Pages unpublished and the gh-pages branch deleted: the site had been serving the untouched 2020 "Welcome to GitHub Pages" placeholder (created when the repo was still named OsintUbU) — a forgotten, unmonitored surface.
New annotated tag archive/pre-rewrite on the tip of the old patch-1 branch (commit 06f08f6, 2022-09-15): preserves the original 2019-2022 history line (Ryan Foote's OSINT_VM_Setup onward, with all contributor attributions), which has no merge base with the rewritten master. The patch-1 branch can now be deleted without losing that history.

[2.1.0-beta] — 2026-07-04

Exploratores added and integrated with Firefox; GUI launchers for previously uncovered tools; Elasticsearch replaced with Shodan; script bug fixes and English-only UI messages.

Added

setup.sh

New "Exploratores" section: clones SOsintOps/Exploratores to ~/Documents/Exploratores via clone_or_update. Exploratores is a static HTML/CSS/JS OSINT toolkit (curated search tools, PII redactor, multi-country IBAN analysis, embedded CyberChef) with no backend; the entry point is launchme.html, opened directly in Firefox.
shodan added to the pipx tool list.

config/policies.json

Homepage policy: Firefox now opens Exploratores (file://__HOME__/Documents/Exploratores/launchme.html) as its homepage. Not locked, so the user can change it from Firefox settings.
New "Exploratores" bookmark added to the managed "Local Tools" bookmark folder, pointing to the local launchme.html.

scripts/ and shortcuts/

exploratores.desktop: application menu shortcut that launches Exploratores in Firefox. Uses the system Firefox icon.
usernames.sh: three previously uncovered pipx tools added to the menu — User Scanner (user-scanner -u/-e), Linkook (linkook), and Socialscan (socialscan). They were installed since v2.0.6 but had no launcher.
phoneinfoga.sh + phoneinfoga.desktop: new launcher for PhoneInfoga (installed since v2.0.6 but previously unreachable). Starts the PhoneInfoga web UI (phoneinfoga serve) on http://127.0.0.1:5000 and opens the browser — same pattern as SpiderFoot. Uses the freedesktop phone icon.
shodan.sh + shodan.desktop: zenity wrapper for the Shodan CLI (prompts for the API key on first use via shodan init, then runs shodan search). Replaces the deprecated Elasticsearch-Crawler. Uses the freedesktop network-server icon.

Changed

setup.sh

policies.json deployment now substitutes the __HOME__ placeholder with the real $HOME at deploy time (sed piped to sudo tee, replacing the previous sudo cp). Required because policies.json now contains local file:// URLs. This is the same mechanism already used for the .desktop shortcut files.
Obsidian download, Obsidian version lookup, and the VSCodium key/repo setup are now wrapped so a network failure logs a warning and continues instead of aborting the whole install under set -euo pipefail + the ERR trap.

scripts/

All zenity/UI messages translated to English (previously mixed Italian/English across usernames.sh, instagram.sh, metagoofil.sh, eyewitness.sh, ffmpeg_interact.sh, youtubedl.sh).

Fixed

scripts/domains.sh

Removed the -src flag from amass enum. The flag was removed in Amass v4 (the version installed via snap) and caused the command to error.

scripts/usernames.sh

Blackbird: the script now opens the folder where Blackbird actually writes its reports (~/Downloads/Programs/blackbird/results/) instead of an empty ~/Documents/blackbird/.

scripts/eyewitness.sh

Uses the EyeWitness virtualenv Python if present, falling back to the system python3, and shows a clear error dialog on failure instead of crashing silently (Ubuntu 24.04 / PEP 668 dependency issues).

Removed

scripts/ and shortcuts/

Elasticsearch-Crawler removed (elasticsearch.sh, elasticsearch.desktop, elasticsearch.png). The tool was unmaintained and the script only showed a deprecation warning; replaced by Shodan (see Added).

[2.0.7-beta] — 2026-04-30

Firefox customisation replaced: zip-based profile template removed, enterprise policies.json adopted.

Added

config/policies.json

Enterprise policies file for Firefox, based on the Speculator Project configuration. Covers privacy hardening (telemetry, tracking, fingerprinting, WebRTC, geolocation disabled), permission lockdown (camera, microphone, location, notifications blocked), sanitise-on-shutdown (cache, cookies, history, sessions cleared), 12 OSINT extensions auto-installed (uBlock Origin, CanvasBlocker, ClearURLs, Multi-Account Containers, EXIF Viewer, Wayback Machine, GPS Detect, Search by Image, Nimbus Screenshot, Resurrect Pages, Link Gopher, Mitaka), and managed OSINT bookmark folders.

Changed

setup.sh

Firefox customisation block completely rewritten. The old approach launched Firefox to create a profile, extracted a ~50 MB zip archive (argosfox/argos-ff-template.zip) from 2022, and copied its contents into the profile directory. The new approach deploys a single policies.json file to the Firefox distribution directory. No profile detection, no zip handling, no Firefox auto-launch required.
Snap Firefox: policies deployed to /etc/firefox/policies/policies.json.
Deb Firefox: policies deployed to /usr/lib/firefox/distribution/policies.json.
Known failure point #4 updated: "Firefox auto-launch" replaced with "Firefox policies.json" describing the new deployment paths.

Removed

setup.sh

zip dependency is no longer required by the Firefox customisation step. It remains in the apt list only if other steps still use it.
Profile detection logic removed (FIREFOX_SNAP_DIR, FIREFOX_DEB_DIR, FF_PROFILE, find *.default*).
Firefox auto-launch block removed (the firefox &>/dev/null &, 15-second wait, and pkill sequence).
argosfox/argos-ff-template.zip reference removed from setup.sh. The argosfox/ directory is no longer used at install time.

user-scanner (pipx): 2-in-1 email and username OSINT suite, 195+ scan vectors. Replaces holehe.
linkook (pipx): discovers linked social accounts and associated emails from a single username.
socialscan (pipx): accurate email and username availability checks via direct registration endpoint queries.
PhoneInfoga (binary): phone number intelligence gathering framework. Installed via the official upstream script to /usr/local/bin/phoneinfoga. Note: declared stable but unmaintained by the developer; binary remains functional.

Removed

setup.sh

holehe (pipx): removed. Last commit September 2024; many modules broken, frequent false positives, superseded by user-scanner.

All 12 .desktop files: /home/osint/ replaced with __HOME__ placeholder. Makes the template nature of these files explicit and removes any ambiguity about the osint username dependency.
youtube_dl.desktop: CRLF line endings converted to LF.

setup.sh

sed substitution in the .desktop copy loop updated from s|/home/osint/|$HOME/|g to s|__HOME__|$HOME|g to match the new placeholder.

VirtualBox Guest Additions listed as an explicit prerequisite. The script no longer installs them; they must be present before running setup.sh.

Fixed

setup.sh

virtualbox-guest-utils and virtualbox-guest-x11 removed from the apt install list. The dpkg interactive config file prompt on virtualbox-guest-x11 blocked non-interactive installation.
Package count in startup quip corrected from 31 to 29.
Known failure points comment block reduced from 6 to 5 entries: the VirtualBox entry removed as those packages are no longer installed.

Changed

setup.sh

Closing motto changed from Si vis pacem, para bellum to Audi, vide, tace — more fitting for an OSINT workstation.

FAILED_PACKAGES array: tracks every apt package that fails to install during the session.
install_apt() function: wraps each apt package install individually. On failure, logs a [WARN] message and appends the package name to FAILED_PACKAGES. The script continues rather than aborting.
Failed packages summary block: printed before the final reboot prompt. Lists every package that did not install, with the log file path for diagnosis.
Known failure points comment block near the top of the script (after the banner). Documents six categories of expected failure: VirtualBox packages on bare-metal, snap/snapd in restricted environments, torbrowser-launcher repository issues, network-dependent steps, Firefox auto-launch in headless sessions, and EyeWitness bundled pip dependencies.

Fixed

setup.sh

python3 -m venv calls for all four venv-based tools (theHarvester, metagoofil, recon-ng, blackbird) are now wrapped in an if/else block. A failed venv creation logs a clear warning and skips the pip install step rather than producing a cryptic error.
Replaced the git clone || (cd && git pull) pattern with a clone_or_update() helper function that handles three cases: clean clone, existing valid repo (pull), and corrupted/partial directory (remove and re-clone).
snap refresh now runs with a 30-second timeout. In restricted VM environments where snapd cannot complete a systemd restart, the previous call would hang indefinitely. The script now continues after 30 seconds and logs a warning.
All 31 apt packages now install individually via install_apt(). A single unavailable package no longer aborts the entire dependency block.
sudo snap install --dangerous "obsidian_..." now has a || log_warn fallback, consistent with the amass and cherrytree snap installs.
pip install calls for theHarvester, metagoofil, recon-ng, and blackbird now each have a || log_warn fallback. A dependency conflict in one tool's venv no longer aborts the remaining tool installations.
sudo rm on the Obsidian snap file changed to sudo rm -f to avoid aborting if the file was not created (e.g. after a failed download).

openshot replaced with openshot-qt — the former package does not exist on Ubuntu 24.04 Noble. Installation would abort at the apt install block.
zip added to the apt dependency list — it is used by the Firefox customisation step but was not explicitly installed, causing failure on minimal systems.

Changed

setup.sh

All user-facing messages, log output, echo statements and inline comments translated to English. Script was previously a mix of Italian and English.
Header updated: Compatibile con → Compatible with, Aggiornato → Updated.

Firefox profile customisation failed silently on a clean VM where Firefox had never been opened. setup.sh now launches Firefox automatically, waits 15 seconds for the default profile to be written, then closes it before applying the Argos template.
.desktop shortcut files contained hardcoded /home/osint/ paths. setup.sh now replaces them with the real $HOME at install time using sed. Any Linux username now works.

scripts/domains.sh

theHarvester writes progress to stderr. The output was silently dropped before reaching the zenity progress bar. Added 2>&1 before the pipe.

scripts/usernames.sh

sherlock and maigret were called without explicit paths. Changed to $HOME/.local/bin/sherlock and $HOME/.local/bin/maigret to ensure they are found in all launch contexts, including Terminal=true sessions where .bashrc may not be fully loaded.

scripts/youtubedl.sh

yt-dlp was called without an explicit path in a Terminal=false launcher. Changed to /usr/bin/yt-dlp.

scripts/spiderfoot.sh

pgrep was called without an explicit path in a Terminal=false launcher. Changed to /usr/bin/pgrep.

scripts/ffmpeg_interact.sh

ffmpeg and ffplay were called without explicit paths in a Terminal=false launcher. Both now use $FFMPEG_BIN and $FFPLAY_BIN variables pointing to /usr/bin/.

All scripts in scripts/

zenity dialogs would not appear on Wayland sessions. All 10 launcher scripts now export GDK_BACKEND=x11 when XDG_SESSION_TYPE=wayland, routing zenity through XWayland transparently. No user action required.

Changed

setup.sh

Installation log moved from $HOME/argos_install_*.log to $HOME/Downloads/argos_install_*.log to keep the home directory clean.

[2.0.0-beta] — 2026-03-31

BREAKING CHANGE: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS is no longer supported. This release targets Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) and Ubuntu Budgie 24.04 LTS.

setup.sh: Complete Rewrite

Added

set -euo pipefail + trap ERR: script halts on any error and reports the exact line number
Installation log file: ~/argos_install_YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS.log (full output captured via tee)
Helper functions: log_ok, log_warn, log_error, log_step for structured output
Root user check: prevents accidental execution as root
sudo add-apt-repository multiverse before install (required for unrar)
virtualbox-guest-utils, virtualbox-guest-x11: VirtualBox clipboard and fullscreen support on desktop environments (Budgie)
python3-venv, pipx: Python isolation tooling for PEP 668 compliance
Dynamic Obsidian version via GitHub API (no longer hardcoded)
Dynamic Firefox profile detection (supports both snap and .deb installs)
VSCodium repository and installation (replaces Atom)
/etc/apt/keyrings/ method for GPG keys (Google Earth, VSCodium)
proxychains4 + tor as safer replacement for kali-anonsurf
yt-dlp via apt (replaces youtube-dl)
httrack (correct package name, replaces webhttrack)
openjdk-21-jre (replaces openjdk-11-jre)

Changed

All sudo pip3 install → pipx install (PEP 668 / Python 3.12 compliance)
Tools with requirements.txt use dedicated .venv per project (theHarvester, metagoofil, recon-ng, blackbird)
python-setuptools → python3-setuptools (Python 2 removed from Ubuntu 24.04)
apt-key add (deprecated) → /etc/apt/keyrings/ for Google Earth and VSCodium
p7zip → 7zip p7zip-full (package renamed in Ubuntu 24.04)
Ripgrep: removed manual .deb download (v11.0.2) → uses apt install ripgrep (v14.x)
Obsidian: hardcoded v0.14.6 → dynamically fetched latest release
Maltego: hardcoded S3 URL → resolved via official download page
openjdk-11-jre → openjdk-21-jre
Firefox profile path: now detected dynamically at runtime (snap or deb)
cd argosfox/ || warn → proper if/else block (critical logic bug fix)
Removed all dead sed patches on already-updated scripts

Removed

youtube-dl (abandoned 2021) → replaced by yt-dlp
Instalooter (abandoned 2020) → removed
Sublist3r (abandoned 2019) → removed (Amass covers same use case)
Photon (abandoned 2020) → removed
kali-anonsurf (incompatible with systemd-resolved on Ubuntu 24.04) → replaced by tor + proxychains4
Moriarty-Project (abandoned) → removed
Elasticsearch-Crawler (abandoned) → removed
Atom Editor (discontinued December 2022) → replaced by VSCodium
sudo pip3 install --upgrade pip (broke system pip on Ubuntu 24.04) → removed entirely
holehe via setup.py install (removed in Python 3.12) → now via pipx
Redundant curl duplicate install
Dead sed blocks on already-updated scripts

scripts/: All Scripts Updated

`youtubedl.sh`

Changed: youtube-dl → yt-dlp
Changed: nautilus → xdg-open (Budgie compatibility)
Changed: hardcoded /home/osint/ → $HOME

`instagram.sh`

Removed: Instalooter option (tool abandoned)
Fixed: instaloader output goes to stderr. Added 2>&1 before pipe to zenity so the progress bar works correctly.
Fixed: explicit path $HOME/.local/bin/instaloader and $HOME/.local/bin/toutatis. Tools are now found when launched from a desktop shortcut with Terminal=false.
Added: availability check for each tool before running
Changed: nautilus → xdg-open, /home/osint/ → $HOME, variables properly quoted

`usernames.sh`

Removed: Moriarty-Project option (tool abandoned)
Added: Blackbird option (via venv at ~/Downloads/Programs/blackbird/.venv)
Changed: Maigret. Was a WIP placeholder; now fully functional via pipx.
Changed: Sherlock. Now called via the sherlock command (pipx); no longer run from a cloned repo.
Changed: nautilus → xdg-open

`spiderfoot.sh`

Rewritten: was a non-functional stub (git clone + pip install); now a proper launcher
Fixed: explicit path $HOME/.local/bin/spiderfoot. Now found correctly with Terminal=false.
Fixed: pgrep -f "spiderfoot -l" instead of pgrep -f "spiderfoot" (avoids false positive on script itself)
Changed: opens browser via xdg-open instead of firefox

`domains.sh`

Removed: Sublist3r option (tool abandoned since 2019)
Removed: Photon option (tool abandoned since 2020)
Changed: theHarvester. Now uses a dedicated venv at ~/Downloads/Programs/theHarvester/.venv.
Changed: Amass. Updated to v4 syntax (amass enum instead of amass intel + amass enum).
Changed: firefox → xdg-open, nautilus → xdg-open, /home/osint/ → $HOME

`elasticsearch.sh`

Rewritten: converted to deprecation notice (tool abandoned, Elasticsearch 8.x requires auth by default)
Added: suggests Shodan CLI as alternative

`eyewitness.sh`

Fixed: correct path to EyeWitness/Python/EyeWitness.py
Changed: /home/osint/ → $HOME, mkdir -p for output directory

`metagoofil.sh`

Fixed (CRITICAL): docs_dir=$(run_metagoofil "$domain") was capturing metagoofil's entire stdout output along with the path, so find "$docs_dir" received a corrupted path. Fixed by using a global variable $DOCS_DIR instead of command substitution.
Fixed: exiftool "$docs_dir"/* (unsafe glob) → exiftool -r "$docs_dir" (handles filenames with spaces)
Changed: uses dedicated venv at ~/Downloads/Programs/metagoofil/.venv
Changed: /home/osint/ → $HOME, mkdir -p

`recon-ng.sh`

Changed: uses dedicated venv at ~/Downloads/Programs/recon-ng/.venv

`ffmpeg_interact.sh`

Changed: nautilus → xdg-open (Budgie: default file manager is Nemo, not Nautilus)
Changed: /home/osint/ → $HOME
Removed: -strict -2 flag (obsolete in modern ffmpeg)

shortcuts/: Desktop Files Updated

File	Change
`youtube_dl.desktop`	Name updated to "Video Downloader", comment updated
`usernames.desktop`	Name updated from "Sherlock" to "Usernames OSINT"
`httrack.desktop`	`Exec=webhttrack` → `Exec=httrack`
`elasticsearch.desktop`	`Terminal=true` → `Terminal=false`, name updated
`spiderfoot.desktop`	`Terminal=true` → `Terminal=false`, comment added
`twitter.desktop`	Was pointing to non-existent `twitter.sh` → now `xdg-open https://x.com`

multimedia/wallpapers/background.sh

Changed: hardcoded /home/osint/Pictures/... → $HOME via WALLPAPER variable
Added: picture-uri-dark for GNOME Wayland dark mode
Fixed: mkdir -p before writing to i3 config
Changed: unknown desktop session now prints a message instead of silently failing

New Files

File	Description
`.gitignore`	Excludes AI/Claude files, IDE config, install logs
`docs/CHANGELOG.md`	This file
`docs/PROJECT_STATUS.md`	AI handoff document: current state and open tasks

Other

test/usernames-test.sh: rewritten to test sherlock, maigret, and blackbird (new toolchain)
scripts/changes.txt: updated with 2026 changes
README.md: BETA label added, tool table updated with maintenance status, Ubuntu 24.04 requirements updated, abandoned tools removed, log section added

[1.x] — 2022

Added Toutatis to instagram.sh
Renamed sherlock.sh to usernames.sh
Icon paths moved from /documents/ to /Pictures/
Renamed sherlock.desktop to usernames.desktop