Read 2026-11-03
dependencytrack/dependency-track: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in dependencytrack/dependency-track's code and history at e620c3d: 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 | strong |
| Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity | adequate |
| Product & Engineering Maturity | strong |
| Security & Reliability Posture | strong |
| Observability & Operations | strong |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongsupport/v4-migrator/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/v4migrator/TableRegistry.java is 6,056 lines, 75× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 80 lines. 14 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 6,056. 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.
support/v4-migrator/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/v4migrator/TableRegistry.java:1 — 6,056 lines (75× median) |
migration/src/main/resources/org/dependencytrack/migration/V202605022031__init.sql:1 — 2,304 lines (28× median) |
dex/engine/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/dex/engine/DexEngineImpl.java:1 — 1,845 lines (23× median) |
apiserver/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/parser/common/resolver/CweDictionary.java:1 — 1,548 lines (19× median) |
apiserver/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/resources/v1/ProjectResource.java:1 — 1,479 lines (18× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
adequate6% of recent commits change more than 2,000 lines
adequate70 of 1094 commits in the last 24 months changed over 2,000 lines of code, not counting reformatting, renames, vendored or generated code. A change that size is rarely reviewed line by line. Ask how they were reviewed, and what made them that large.
| 70 commits over 2,000 lines |
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongReleases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, 5.2.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is 5.2.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag 5.2.1 |
Security & Reliability Posture
strong4 SQL statements built from strings
adequate4 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.
support/v4-migrator/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/v4migrator/extract/ExtractPhase.java:100 — SQL built from a string |
support/v4-migrator/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/v4migrator/preflight/Preflight.java:235 — SQL built from a string |
support/v4-migrator/src/main/java/org/dependencytrack/v4migrator/transform/TransformPhase.java:51 — SQL built from a string |
4 advisories against this project in the last 24 months
adequateThe newest was published on 2025-11-17. 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 4 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 5.2.0. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version.
| 2025-11-17: GHSA-93r8-3g93-w2gq (moderate), fixed in >=4.13.6: Possible XML External Entity injection via validation of CycloneDX BOMs in XML format |
| 2025-10-07: GHSA-83g2-vgqh-mgxc (moderate), fixed in 4.13.5: Possible disclosure of private NuGet repository credentials to api.nuget.org |
| 2025-02-24: GHSA-9582-88hr-54w3 (moderate), fixed in 4.12.6: Local file inclusion via custom notification templates |
| 2024-12-04: GHSA-9w3m-hm36-w32w (moderate), fixed in 4.12.2: Enumeration of managed users via /api/v1/user/login endpoint |
Observability & Operations
strongNo error reporter is wired in
adequateNothing in the service initialises an error reporter (Sentry, Rollbar, Bugsnag, Honeybadger or an APM agent). An exception in production reaches a person only if someone is reading the logs, which usually means a customer reports it first.
| no error reporter initialised |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
Read more, or read your own
The full report on dependencytrack/dependency-track: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
Survey a repository: free on public repositories. Private code is read on your own machine by a collector whose source you can read first.