Borehole · Project · free tier
element-hq/element-x-android
Free reading: not for reliance
ea9eec2 · 16,139 commits · 11,824 files
Read 2026-10-04

element-hq/element-x-android: technical due diligence, read from its repository

What Borehole read in element-hq/element-x-android's code and history at ea9eec2: 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.

DimensionRating
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenancestrong
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturitystrong
Product & Engineering Maturitystrong
Security & Reliability Posturestrong
Observability & Operationsnot assessable
Fit with the Acquirernot assessable

What the repository says

  • Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
  • LICENSE: Relicensed: Apache-2.0 → AGPL-3.0 (2024-09-10)
  • CONTRIBUTING.md:71: states a policy on AI-generated contributions
  • .gitmodules:1: 1 submodule(s) this survey does not read: enterprise

Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance

strong
01.6

screenshots/html/data.js is 1,836 lines, 41× this codebase's median file

adequate

The median source file here is 44 lines. 4 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 1,836. 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.

Evidence
screenshots/html/data.js:1 — 1,836 lines (41× median)
features/messages/impl/src/main/kotlin/io/element/android/features/messages/impl/timeline/components/TimelineItemEventRow.kt:1 — 1,203 lines (27× median)
libraries/textcomposer/impl/src/main/kotlin/io/element/android/libraries/textcomposer/TextComposer.kt:1 — 1,114 lines (25× median)
libraries/matrix/impl/src/main/kotlin/io/element/android/libraries/matrix/impl/RustMatrixClient.kt:1 — 1,017 lines (23× median)

Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity

strong

No finding.

Product & Engineering Maturity

strong
04.62

Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed

adequate

The newest release, v26.09.4, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v26.09.3. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.

Evidence
tag v26.09.4

Security & Reliability Posture

strong
05.27

The build runs third-party code it does not pin

adequate

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.

Evidence
.github/workflows/maestro-local.yml:104 — download piped into a shell
05.26

1 locked dependency has published vulnerabilities

adequate

1 of 117 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.

Evidence
gradle/libs.versions.toml — org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-gradle-plugin 2.4.10: GHSA-r937-wjx7-w2jp (moderate), fixed in 2.4.20-Beta1
05.60

Relicensed: Apache-2.0 → AGPL-3.0 (2024-09-10)

adequate

The root licence changed 1 time(s). The latest terms restrict what users, hosts or a buyer may do in ways the earlier ones did not. Code taken under the old terms stays under them, so both matter in diligence.

Evidence
LICENSE — Apache-2.0 from 2022-10-06
LICENSE — AGPL-3.0 from 2024-09-10
05.65

4 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 3 high or critical

adequate

The newest was published on 2026-08-07. 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 2 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 26.9.3. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version.

Evidence
2026-08-07: CVE-2026-48007 (high): Element Call is a native Matrix video conferencing application. Versions 0.5.17 through 0.19.3 report analytics data to a PostHog server, when configured to by
2026-07-15: GHSA-r4f9-46vw-v7g3 (moderate), fixed in v26.06.2: DoS via malformed OIDC callback intent
2025-04-17: GHSA-m5px-pwq3-4p5m (high), fixed in 25.04.2: Element X Android vulnerable to loading malicious web pages via received intent
2025-04-03: GHSA-x2g5-f28j-p7w6 (high), fixed in 25.03.4: The entity in control of the well-known file can break the confidentiality embedded Element Call

Observability & Operations

not assessable

Not 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 assessable

Not rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.

Read more, or read your own

The full report on element-hq/element-x-android: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.

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