Read 2026-10-04
hashicorp/nomad: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in hashicorp/nomad's code and history at 5948bb9: 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 | strong |
| Product & Engineering Maturity | adequate |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | strong |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
LICENSE:1: The licence is BUSL-1.1: source available, not open sourceLICENSE: Relicensed: MPL-2.0 → BUSL-1.1 (2023-08-10)
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongnomad/structs/structs.go is 10,968 lines, 135× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 81 lines. 52 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 10,968. 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.
nomad/structs/structs.go:1 — 10,968 lines (135× median) |
nomad/state/state_store.go:1 — 7,459 lines (92× median) |
client/client.go:1 — 3,603 lines (44× median) |
nomad/structs/diff.go:1 — 3,497 lines (43× median) |
nomad/fsm.go:1 — 3,423 lines (42× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongTests are retried until they pass
adequateThe suite is configured to retry failing tests (e2e/ui/playwright.config.js). A retry turns a flaky test green without saying why it failed, so a green build means the tests passed eventually. Ask how many retries a typical run needs, and which tests need them.
e2e/ui/playwright.config.js:15 — test retry |
Product & Engineering Maturity
adequate129 direct dependencies in a single manifest
adequatego.mod declares 129 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.
go.mod — 129 declared |
api/go.mod — 6 declared |
jobspec2/go.mod — 6 declared |
Node.js 12 is past end of life
adequateThe code is pinned to Node.js 12 (end of life 2022-04-30). None of these receives security fixes any more; the first stopped on 2022-04-30. Moving off an unsupported runtime is rarely a one-line change, so a buyer should ask whether the upgrade is planned and what it touches.
ui/.nvmrc — Node.js 12, end of life 2022-04-30 |
Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v2.0.7, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v1.2.6. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v2.0.7 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate1 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 |
The build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate1 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.
scripts/vagrant-linux-unpriv-ui.sh:9 — download piped into a shell |
6 SQL statements built from strings
adequate6 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.
api/fs.go:80 — SQL built from a string |
api/fs.go:103 — SQL built from a string |
api/jobs.go:258 — SQL built from a string |
6 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 4 high or critical
adequate6 of 1,958 locked dependencies match 7 published advisories in OSV, 4 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. None of the high or critical ones is in what the product ships: they are development dependencies.
pnpm-lock.yaml — braces 3.0.3: GHSA-vfj7-8cjw-p6xm (high); a development dependency |
pnpm-lock.yaml — engine.io 6.6.9: GHSA-2gc4-cqfq-p2gv (high), fixed in 6.6.10; a development dependency |
pnpm-lock.yaml — immutable 5.1.5: GHSA-v56q-mh7h-f735 (high), fixed in 5.1.8; a development dependency |
The licence is BUSL-1.1: source available, not open source
adequateLICENSE grants BUSL-1.1: source available, not open source; production use restricted until the change date. The reading comes from the licence's own title and clauses. Whether the terms fit the buyer's intended use, and whether any paid licence transfers with the code, is a question for counsel and the licensor.
LICENSE:1 — 92 lines, BUSL-1.1 |
Relicensed: MPL-2.0 → BUSL-1.1 (2023-08-10)
adequateThe 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.
13 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 7 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-09-10. A project that publishes advisories is telling its users about its fixes, and the count and pace say how much security work it carries. GHSA-3934-423w-4jq3 (moderate), GHSA-c3q9-q986-vrwh (moderate), GHSA-2w5v-x29g-jw7j (moderate) 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. The record is incomplete: NVD: 12 records name nomad with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2019-1003092, CVE-2019-1003093, CVE-2020-4092, …).
| 2026-09-10: CVE-2026-87993 (high): The consul-template library is vulnerable to an information disclosure issue in its error handling path that may allow Vault secret values to appear in template |
| 2026-07-08: CVE-2026-14373 (high): HashiCorp Nomad and Nomad Enterprise did not enforce the allow_privileged restriction for the Docker task driver's host namespace mode options. This may allow a |
| 2026-07-08: CVE-2026-14891 (high): HashiCorp Nomad and Nomad Enterprise are vulnerable to a sandbox escape in the Docker task driver that may allow a job submitter to bind-mount a host path into |
| 2026-07-08: CVE-2026-14896 (moderate): HashiCorp Nomad and Nomad Enterprise are vulnerable to a cross-namespace authorization bypass in the dynamic host volumes feature that may allow an operator hol |
| 2026-05-12: GHSA-3934-423w-4jq3 (moderate), fixed in 1.11.0-rc.1.0.20260512123500-2a09fd62c238: HashiCorp Nomad vulnerable to symlink attack |
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.
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