Read 2026-10-22
appsmithorg/appsmith: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in appsmithorg/appsmith's code and history at b847309: its licence, security advisories, releases, review practice, tests, dependencies and operations. Every finding cites the file and line it rests on. The full report also covers the team and asks the questions the code cannot answer.
| Dimension | Rating |
|---|---|
| Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance | adequate |
| Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity | strong |
| Product & Engineering Maturity | adequate |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | adequate |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
app/client/packages/mcp/src/ee/extensions/api.ts: 305 files are named as enterprise-edition code
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
adequateapp/client/src/components/editorComponents/PartialImportExport/PartialExportModal/unitTestUtils.ts is 20,770 lines, 391× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 53 lines. 93 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 20,770. Size is not a defect on its own — some problems genuinely live in one place — but these are where merge conflicts, review fatigue and single-owner knowledge concentrate, and they are the first thing that slows an inheriting engineer down.
app/client/src/components/editorComponents/PartialImportExport/PartialExportModal/unitTestUtils.ts:1 — 20,770 lines (391× median) |
app/client/public/libraries/jsonwebtoken@8.5.1.js:1 — 19,990 lines (377× median) |
app/client/packages/mcp/src/app.ts:1 — 9,000 lines (169× median) |
app/client/public/libraries/fast-csv@4.3.6.js:1 — 8,087 lines (152× median) |
app/client/packages/design-system/widgets/src/components/Icon/src/icons.ts:1 — 5,402 lines (101× median) |
1 base image floats: no version, or `latest`
adequate1 of 6 `FROM` lines in product Dockerfiles name an image without a version, or with `latest`. Each build pulls whatever the registry serves that day, so the image that ships can change without a commit, and last month's build cannot be reproduced. Pin a version, or a digest.
deploy/heroku/Dockerfile:2 — base image without a version |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongNo finding.
Product & Engineering Maturity
adequate198 direct dependencies in a single manifest
adequateapp/client/package.json declares 198 direct dependencies. Each one is a maintenance obligation, a supply-chain surface and a potential licence question that transfers with the asset. The count says nothing about whether any given dependency was a good choice; it says how many such choices a buyer inherits.
app/client/package.json — 198 declared |
app/client/packages/design-system/ads/package.json — 26 declared |
app/client/packages/design-system/widgets/package.json — 21 declared |
app/client/packages/rts/package.json — 20 declared |
4 jobs are each done by more than one library
adequateWithin a single package: HTTP clients: axios, got, node-fetch; dates: date-fns, dayjs, moment; forms: react-hook-form, redux-form; utility belts: lodash, underscore. Each duplicate is bundle size, two ways of doing the same thing in one codebase, and two upgrade paths to maintain. It is usually the residue of a migration that stopped halfway.
app/client/package.json — several libraries per job |
app/client/packages/ast/package.json — several libraries per job |
26 files still carry code deprecated more than two years ago
adequate26 files were marked deprecated over two years ago and still are, the oldest since Dec 2021. A deprecation is a promise to remove. Ask what still depends on these, and whether removing them is scheduled.
app/server/appsmith-server/src/main/java/com/appsmith/server/controllers/ce/PageControllerCE.java — deprecated since Dec 2021 |
app/server/appsmith-server/src/main/java/com/appsmith/server/domains/User.java — deprecated since Jun 2022 |
app/server/appsmith-server/src/main/java/com/appsmith/server/domains/Workspace.java — deprecated since Jun 2022 |
app/server/appsmith-server/src/main/java/com/appsmith/server/domains/UserData.java — deprecated since Jun 2022 |
app/server/appsmith-server/src/main/java/com/appsmith/server/acl/AclPermission.java — deprecated since Aug 2022 |
Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v2.5.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v1.43. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v2.5.1 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate2 Dockerfiles run the application as root
adequateNo USER instruction switches away from root, so the process runs with full privileges inside the container. It is a one-line fix and an ordinary expectation, which is why its absence is worth asking about: it usually says more about whether anyone has reviewed the deployment than about this container specifically.
Dockerfile — runs as root |
deploy/heroku/Dockerfile — runs as root |
The build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate18 third-party CI actions are referenced by a tag or branch rather than a commit, so they run whatever that tag points to on the day; 1 step pipes a download straight into a shell. Tags have been moved to malicious commits in real supply-chain attacks, and a piped script is whatever the server returns that minute. Pinning to a commit is the fix, and it is small.
.github/workflows/ad-hoc-docker-image.yml:131 — action pinned by tag |
.github/workflows/ad-hoc-docker-image.yml:134 — action pinned by tag |
deploy/digital_ocean/scripts/01-packages.sh:13 — download piped into a shell |
13 SQL statements built from strings
adequate13 places in product code build SQL by formatting or joining strings rather than passing parameters. In each, what the code shows going in is a table or column name, a constant, or something the line does not show, not a request's value. Ask whether any value reaches these strings, rather than a parameter.
31 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 18 high or critical
adequate31 of 3,331 locked dependencies match 43 published advisories in OSV, 18 of them rated high or critical. A lockfile says which version is installed, not whether the flawed code is reachable from this product, so each needs a look. Most are fixed by an upgrade, and the advisory names the version. This lockfile pins development tools alongside what ships and does not say which is which, so some of these may never reach a user.
app/client/yarn.lock — @storybook/core 8.2.7: GHSA-f2ph-cmg5-wxc8 (critical), fixed in 8.6.19 |
app/client/yarn.lock — storybook 8.2.7: GHSA-f2ph-cmg5-wxc8 (critical), fixed in 8.6.19 |
app/client/yarn.lock — braces 3.0.3: GHSA-vfj7-8cjw-p6xm (high) |
24 places insert HTML from a variable without sanitising it
adequate24 places set HTML from a value that is neither a literal nor passed through a sanitiser. Where the value can come from a user, that is stored cross-site scripting, and it is the first thing a buyer's security review looks for in a frontend.
app/client/public/tinymce/tinymce.min.js:835 — HTML from a variable |
app/client/public/tinymce/tinymce.min.js:2396 — HTML from a variable |
app/client/public/tinymce/tinymce.min.js:4542 — HTML from a variable |
The production build publishes source maps
adequateThe build configuration emits source maps for production, so the original source, with its comments and structure, is downloadable by every visitor. Upload them to an error tracker and keep them off the public server instead.
app/client/packages/ast/rollup.config.js:14 — source maps in a production build |
app/client/packages/design-system/widgets/rollup.config.js:32 — source maps in a production build |
app/client/packages/dsl/rollup.config.js:15 — source maps in a production build |
305 files are named as enterprise-edition code
adequateFiles named `.ee.` are, by the common open-core convention, the paid edition's code, usually under a licence that is not open source even where the rest is. What the buyer may do with each part differs.
app/client/packages/mcp/src/ee/extensions/api.ts — enterprise-edition file |
app/client/packages/mcp/src/ee/extensions/capabilities.ts — enterprise-edition file |
app/client/packages/mcp/src/ee/extensions/catalog.ts — enterprise-edition file |
49 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 27 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-10-06. A project that publishes advisories is telling its users about its fixes, and the count and pace say how much security work it carries. Whether 46 of them are fixed in the code you ship could not be told from this history: its version is only known to be at least 1.43.0. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version. GHSA-xfc5-796c-7hr9 (moderate), CVE-2026-7299 (moderate), GHSA-7hf5-mc28-xmcv (critical) are fixed in the surveyed commit; which release carries them cannot be told from this history, which does not place the release users run. Answer lives in: the version you run.
| 2026-10-06: GHSA-cfv8-wh7w-xx73 (moderate), fixed in 2.3: Git auto-commit progress endpoint discloses branch and progress state without checking caller authorization |
| 2026-10-06: GHSA-fqwc-g9wm-5895 (critical), fixed in 2.3: Arbitrary file read and write via symlinks in Git import |
| 2026-10-06: GHSA-frqc-9x9h-fv9v (moderate), fixed in 2.2: Cross-site scripting via CSS tokens in custom widgets |
| 2026-09-29: GHSA-rf99-rc2w-vh94 (moderate), fixed in 2.4: MongoDB root credentials exposed via the admin environment settings endpoint |
| 2026-09-17: GHSA-h5qf-426x-5mv5 (high), fixed in 2.3: Unauthorized workspace membership changes via incomplete authorization checks |
Observability & Operations
adequateNo structured logging library is in use
adequateNothing references a structured logging library. Logs that are written to be read by a person are not searchable by a machine, which means incident response here is proportional to how well someone remembers the codebase rather than to what the tooling can find.
| searched 10,172 files for 10 structured logging libraries; 0 matched |
1 of 1 deployed images carry no version, or `latest`
adequate1 images in the deployment configuration are named without a version or as `latest`. A redeploy can change the software without a commit, a rollback has nothing to roll back to, and nobody can say from the repository what is running.
deploy/helm/templates/autoupdate.yaml:22 — image without a version |
Readiness and liveness probes are identical in 1 of 1 workloads
adequateBoth probes call the same endpoint. When a dependency slows down, the liveness probe fails with the readiness probe, so the platform restarts pods that only needed taking out of rotation, and a partial outage becomes a full one. Liveness should ask whether the process is alive; readiness whether it can serve.
deploy/helm/templates/deployment.yaml — same probe endpoint twice |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
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The full report on appsmithorg/appsmith: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
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