Borehole · Project · free tier
onyx-dot-app/onyx
Free reading: not for reliance
4a750ae · 11,192 commits · 9,514 files
Read 2026-10-23

onyx-dot-app/onyx: technical due diligence, read from its repository

What Borehole read in onyx-dot-app/onyx's code and history at 4a750ae: 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 Postureadequate
Observability & Operationsadequate
Fit with the Acquirernot assessable

What the repository says

  • Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
  • LICENSE: Relicensed: AGPL-3.0 → MIT (2023-05-10)
  • backend/ee/LICENSE: Part of the code is under a separate licence: backend/ee/, web/src/app/ee/, web/src/ee/

Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance

strong
01.6

backend/onyx/db/models.py is 7,805 lines, 72× this codebase's median file

adequate

The median source file here is 107 lines. 79 files exceed 1,070 lines, the largest being 7,805. 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
backend/onyx/db/models.py:1 — 7,805 lines (72× median)
web/src/app/craft/hooks/useBuildSessionStore.ts:1 — 3,772 lines (35× median)
backend/onyx/server/features/mcp/api.py:1 — 3,598 lines (33× median)
backend/onyx/auth/users.py:1 — 3,393 lines (31× median)
backend/onyx/server/manage/llm/api.py:1 — 3,301 lines (30× median)

Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity

strong
02.16

Tests are retried until they pass

adequate

The suite is configured to retry failing tests (web/playwright.config.ts). 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.

Evidence
web/playwright.config.ts:18 — test retry

Product & Engineering Maturity

strong
04.62

Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed

adequate

The newest release, v4.9.4, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v4.2.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.

Evidence
tag v4.9.4

Security & Reliability Posture

adequate
05.1

21 credential-shaped strings in the tree sit in tests, examples, documentation or local development settings

adequate

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. 3 other matchs 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.

Evidence
2 cited: AWS access key, where fakes are usual
3 cited: Slack token, where fakes are usual
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
backend/Dockerfile — runs as root
05.27

The build runs third-party code it does not pin

adequate

3 steps pipe 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
deployment/docker_compose/install.sh:8 — download piped into a shell
05.13

12 outbound calls can wait forever

adequate

12 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
backend/ee/onyx/server/oauth/confluence_cloud.py:208 — outbound call without a timeout
backend/ee/onyx/server/oauth/confluence_cloud.py:300 — outbound call without a timeout
backend/ee/onyx/server/oauth/google_drive.py:168 — outbound call without a timeout
05.22

4 deserialisers that can run code

adequate

4 places read data with a deserialiser that executes what it reads (pickle). That is safe on data the system wrote itself and remote code execution on anything else. Ask where each one's input comes from.

Evidence
backend/onyx/background/celery/configs/base.py:190 — code-executing deserialiser
backend/onyx/indexing/chunk_batch_store.py:55 — code-executing deserialiser
backend/onyx/utils/isolated_runner.py:26 — code-executing deserialiser
05.26

30 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 4 high or critical in what ships

adequate

30 of 1,120 locked dependencies match 72 published advisories in OSV, 17 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. 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
uv.lock — aiohttp 3.14.3: GHSA-2g87-pp6c-29x5 (high), fixed in 3.14.4
uv.lock — fsspec 2025.10.0: GHSA-27vj-qcqg-25rc (high), fixed in 2026.6.0
uv.lock — graphql-core 3.2.8: GHSA-r77w-qph3-7vf8 (high), fixed in 3.2.12; a development dependency
05.48

11 places insert HTML from a variable without sanitising it

adequate

11 places set HTML from a value that is neither a literal nor passed through a sanitiser. Where the value can come from a user, that is stored cross-site scripting, and it is the first thing a buyer's security review looks for in a frontend.

05.60

Relicensed: AGPL-3.0 → MIT (2023-05-10)

adequate

The root licence changed 1 time(s). Code taken under earlier terms stays under them; check which terms any fork or customer relied on.

Evidence
LICENSE — AGPL-3.0 from 2023-04-27
LICENSE — MIT from 2023-05-10
05.61

Part of the code is under a separate licence: backend/ee/, web/src/app/ee/, web/src/ee/

adequate

A directory named for a paid edition carries its own licence. That code is usually not open source even where the rest is; what the buyer may do with each part differs.

Evidence
backend/ee/LICENSE — licence: unrecognised
web/src/app/ee/LICENSE — licence: unrecognised
web/src/ee/LICENSE — licence: unrecognised
05.65

6 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 2 high or critical

adequate

The newest was published on 2026-09-04. 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 4 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 4.2.0. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version. GHSA-7f48-vgpj-h95m (moderate) is fixed in the surveyed commit; which release carries it 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: 7 records name onyx with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2020-11584, CVE-2023-43784, CVE-2024-0101, …).

Evidence
2026-09-04: CVE-2026-85700 (high): Onyx 4.6.6 fails to properly restrict access to custom tool credentials stored in custom_headers, allowing any authenticated user to read admin-defined API keys
2026-07-20: GHSA-7f48-vgpj-h95m (moderate), fixed in 4.3.0: Curator-scope IDOR: any curator can modify membership of arbitrary user groups via unscoped PATCH /manage/admin/user-group/{id} and /add-users leading to cross-
2026-07-20: GHSA-q62f-rv3h-f822 (critical), fixed in 4.0.0+: Cross-user OAuth-token leak via /api/mcp/servers* for per-user MCP servers
2026-04-29: GHSA-rw6w-hp62-gc8w (moderate), fixed in 3.0.9: IDOR in /chat/stop-chat-session allows any authenticated user to interrupt other users chat sessions
2026-04-29: GHSA-vg3h-35f7-7w6r (moderate), fixed in 3.0.9: IDOR in /chat/file/{file_id} allows any authenticated user to download other users files

Observability & Operations

adequate
06.35

Sends usage data to telemetry.onyx.app by default

adequate

backend/onyx/utils/fleet_telemetry.py sends to telemetry.onyx.app, and backend/onyx/background/celery/tasks/monitoring/tasks.py 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.

Evidence
backend/onyx/utils/fleet_telemetry.py:35 — reports to telemetry.onyx.app
backend/onyx/background/celery/tasks/monitoring/tasks.py:324 — the reporting setting is on by default
06.18

4 of 14 deployed images carry no version, or `latest`

adequate

4 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
deployment/docker_compose/docker-compose.prod.yml:470 — image without a version
deployment/helm/charts/onyx/Chart.yaml:19 — image without a version
deployment/helm/charts/onyx/Chart.yaml:21 — image without a version
06.14

Readiness and liveness probes are identical in 2 of 12 workloads

adequate

Both probes call the same endpoint. When a dependency slows down, the liveness probe fails with the readiness probe, so the platform restarts pods that only needed taking out of rotation, and a partial outage becomes a full one. Liveness should ask whether the process is alive; readiness whether it can serve.

06.34

Schema migrations run every time a container starts

adequate

The start command runs the database migration and then the server, and the deployment runs more than one replica. Replicas race to migrate, a rollback cannot undo the schema, and a failed migration takes the service down with it. A separate job or release step is the usual fix.

Fit with the Acquirer

not assessable

Not rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.

Read more, or read your own

The full report on onyx-dot-app/onyx: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.

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