n8n-io/n8n: technical due diligence, read from its repository

565 of 11280 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.

packages/cli/package.json declares 157 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.

Strings 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.

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.

32 places in product code build SQL by formatting or joining strings rather than passing parameters, and in 5 of them a value, not a table or column name, goes into the string. Where any of those values comes from a request, it is an injection point. Each site needs a look; the fix, parameters, is small.

49 of 3,880 locked dependencies match 129 published advisories in OSV, 44 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.

1 places in the deployment configuration run a container privileged or in the host's network, process or IPC namespace. A compromise of that container is a compromise of the machine, and most acquirers' security reviews block it. Node agents (network, storage, monitoring) are excluded.

Files named `.ee.` are, by the common open-core convention, the paid edition's code, usually under a licence that is not open source even where the rest is. What the buyer may do with each part differs.

packages/@n8n/config/src/configs/diagnostics.config.ts sends to telemetry.n8n.io, and packages/@n8n/db/src/migrations/common/1784000000019-AddCustomTelemetryTagsToProject.ts leaves reporting on as shipped. Every installation reports to the vendor unless its operator turns this off. For a buyer running it inside their own product, that is an outbound data flow to a third party: ask what is sent, how often, and whether the buyer's customers were told.