Read 2026-10-23
docker/compose: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in docker/compose's code and history at e18ab3d: 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 | strong |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | not assessable |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
.github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md:8: states a policy on AI-generated contributionsCONTRIBUTING.md:247: names Linux FoundationREADME.md:16: names OpenSSF
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
adequatepkg/compose/reconcile.go is 1,829 lines, 16× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 109 lines. 2 files exceed 1,090 lines, the largest being 1,829. 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.
pkg/compose/reconcile.go:1 — 1,829 lines (16× median) |
pkg/compose/create.go:1 — 1,667 lines (15× median) |
3 base images float: no version, or `latest`
adequate3 of 38 `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.
Dockerfile:167 — base image without a version |
Dockerfile:209 — base image without a version |
Dockerfile:224 — base image without a version |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongNo finding.
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongReleases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v5.6.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v5.6.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v5.6.1 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate2 credential-shaped strings in the tree sit in tests, examples, documentation or local development settings
adequateStrings shaped like credentials appear only where fakes are usual: test fixtures, examples, documentation, placeholders and local stacks. They are almost always fakes. Ask someone to confirm that none of them works anywhere, because a real key in a development file is still a real key. 1 other match set aside: expired tokens, licence tokens a vendor verifies with a public key, or placeholder text where a key would go. None grants access to anything.
| 2 cited: GitHub token, where fakes are usual |
1 Dockerfile runs 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 |
1 locked dependency has published vulnerabilities
adequate1 of 124 locked dependencies match 1 published advisories in OSV. 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.
go.mod — github.com/docker/distribution v2.8.3+incompatible: GHSA-685w-q87j-wqw3 (moderate) |
3 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 2 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-08-20. 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 1 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 5.6.0. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version. The record is incomplete: NVD: 45 records name compose with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2024-10846, CVE-2024-22271, CVE-2025-23525, …).
| 2026-08-20: CVE-2026-73040 (high): Dockge validates a stack name only on the write path. In backend/stack.ts the allow-list check in validate(), which requires the name to match ^[a-z0-9_-]+$, is |
| 2026-03-10: GO-2026-4610 (unrated), fixed in 5.1.0: Docker CLI Plugins: Uncontrolled Search Path Element Leads to Local Privilege Escalation on Windows in github.com/docker/cli |
| 2025-10-27: GHSA-gv8h-7v7w-r22q (high), fixed in v2.40.2: Path Traversal via OCI Artifact Layer Annotations |
Observability & Operations
not assessableNot rated: only 5 of 16 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it.
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
Read more, or read your own
The full report on docker/compose: 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.