Borehole · Project · free tier
influxdata/telegraf
Free reading: not for reliance
8680868 · 11,718 commits · 6,419 files
Read 2026-10-23

influxdata/telegraf: technical due diligence, read from its repository

What Borehole read in influxdata/telegraf's code and history at 8680868: 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 Maturityadequate
Security & Reliability Postureadequate
Observability & Operationsstrong
Fit with the Acquirernot assessable

What the repository says

  • Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
  • .github/PULL_REQUEST_TEMPLATE.md:12: states a policy on AI-generated contributions

Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance

strong
01.6

plugins/parsers/influx/machine.go is 3,811 lines, 34× this codebase's median file

adequate

The median source file here is 112 lines. 10 files exceed 1,120 lines, the largest being 3,811. 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
plugins/parsers/influx/machine.go:1 — 3,811 lines (34× median)
config/config.go:1 — 2,085 lines (18× median)
plugins/inputs/mysql/mysql.go:1 — 1,999 lines (17× median)
plugins/inputs/zipkin/codec/thrift/gen-go/zipkincore/zipkinCore.go:1 — 1,565 lines (13× median)
plugins/inputs/sqlserver/sqlserverqueries.go:1 — 1,483 lines (13× median)

Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity

strong

No finding.

Product & Engineering Maturity

adequate
04.3

257 direct dependencies in a single manifest

adequate

go.mod declares 257 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.

Evidence
go.mod — 257 declared
04.38

5 files still carry code deprecated more than two years ago

adequate

5 files were marked deprecated over two years ago and still are, the oldest since Nov 2021. A deprecation is a promise to remove. Ask what still depends on these, and whether removing them is scheduled.

Evidence
plugins/inputs/jti_openconfig_telemetry/auth/authentication_service.pb.go — deprecated since Nov 2021
plugins/inputs/jti_openconfig_telemetry/oc/oc.pb.go — deprecated since Nov 2021
config/deprecation.go — deprecated since Dec 2021
cmd/telegraf/main.go — deprecated since Aug 2022
plugins/parsers/openmetrics/openmetrics_data_model.pb.go — deprecated since May 2024
04.62

Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed

adequate

The newest release, v1.40.2, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is 0.13.1. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.

Evidence
tag v1.40.2

Security & Reliability Posture

adequate
05.6

1 Dockerfile runs the application as root

adequate

No 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.

Evidence
plugins/outputs/postgresql/Dockerfile — runs as root
05.27

The build runs third-party code it does not pin

adequate

3 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. 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/linter.yml:57 — action pinned by tag
.github/workflows/milestones.yml:20 — action pinned by tag
05.13

3 outbound calls can wait forever

adequate

3 HTTP calls use a client with no timeout (Python `requests` without `timeout=`, or Go's default client). When a dependency slows down, each one holds a worker until the connection gives up, and enough of them take the service down with the dependency.

Evidence
plugins/inputs/prometheus/kubernetes.go:267 — outbound call without a timeout
plugins/outputs/newrelic/newrelic.go:163 — outbound call without a timeout
plugins/outputs/opentelemetry/client_http.go:27 — outbound call without a timeout
05.20

2 SQL statements built from strings

adequate

2 places in product code build SQL by formatting or joining strings rather than passing parameters. 1 of them put a value into the string; in the rest, what the code shows going in is a table or column name, a constant, or something the line does not show. Ask whether any value reaches these strings, rather than a parameter.

Evidence
plugins/inputs/clickhouse/clickhouse.go:111 — SQL built from a string
plugins/inputs/mysql/mysql.go:1832 — SQL built from a string
05.26

1 locked dependency has published vulnerabilities

adequate

1 of 619 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
go.mod — github.com/go-chi/chi/v5 v5.3.2: GHSA-j6qf-3m9c-vwj3 (moderate), fixed in 5.4.0

Observability & Operations

strong
06.9

No error reporter is wired in

adequate

Nothing 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.

Evidence
no error reporter initialised
06.18

5 of 8 deployed images carry no version, or `latest`

adequate

5 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.

Evidence
plugins/inputs/zookeeper/dev/docker-compose.yml:7 — image without a version
plugins/inputs/mongodb/dev/docker-compose.yml:4 — image without a version
plugins/inputs/mysql/dev/docker-compose.yml:13 — image without a version

Fit with the Acquirer

not assessable

Not rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.

Read more, or read your own

The full report on influxdata/telegraf: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.

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