Read 2026-10-28
ory/polis: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in ory/polis's code and history at e13ed65: 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 | strong |
| 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
ee/LICENSE: Part of the code is under a separate licence: ee/, npm/src/ee/CONTRIBUTING.md:210: states a policy on AI-generated contributions
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongnpm/src/controller/oauth.ts is 1,584 lines, 36× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 44 lines. 1 file exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 1,584. 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.
npm/src/controller/oauth.ts:1 — 1,584 lines (36× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongTests are retried until they pass
adequateThe suite is configured to retry failing tests (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.
playwright.config.ts:17 — test retry |
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongEffort is shifting from building to rewriting
adequateDeleted lines per line added rose from 0.40 to 0.93 between the first and second halves of this history. Rework is normal and often healthy, but a rising ratio means an increasing share of the team's time is spent replacing code that already exists rather than building what does not. Whether that is deliberate repayment or churn is a question for the team.
| first half 0.40, second half 0.93 (split 2024-02-04) |
Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v26.2.0, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v1.51.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v26.2.0 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequateThe build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate8 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.
.github/workflows/main.yml:141 — action pinned by tag |
.github/workflows/main.yml:224 — action pinned by tag |
28 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 54 high or critical in what ships
adequate28 of 873 locked dependencies match 108 published advisories in OSV, 58 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.
package-lock.json — next 16.2.11: GHSA-2464-fhr4-w9xw (critical), fixed in 16.4.1 |
npm/package-lock.json — @azure/msal-node 5.1.4: GHSA-xcx6-jx8p-x3h5 (high), fixed in 7.1.0 |
package-lock.json — @azure/msal-node 5.3.1: GHSA-xcx6-jx8p-x3h5 (high), fixed in 7.1.0 |
The production build publishes source maps
adequateThe build configuration emits source maps for production, so the original source, with its comments and structure, is downloadable by every visitor. Upload them to an error tracker and keep them off the public server instead.
next.config.js:11 — source maps in a production build |
Part of the code is under a separate licence: ee/, npm/src/ee/
adequateA 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.
ee/LICENSE — licence: unrecognised |
npm/src/ee/LICENSE — licence: unrecognised |
1 advisory against this project in the last 24 months, 1 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-03-20. A project that publishes advisories is telling its users about its fixes, and the count and pace say how much security work it carries. None of them affects the surveyed version.
| 2026-03-20: GHSA-3wjr-6gw8-9j22 (high), fixed in >=26.2.0: DOM-Based XSS in Ory Polis Login Page |
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 |
1 of 11 deployed images carry no version, or `latest`
adequate1 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.
kustomize/overlays/postgres/migratepg-job.yaml:11 — image without a version |
3 of 11 deployments run a single replica
adequate3 deployments set `replicas: 1`, and nothing (an autoscaler, a disruption budget) adds more. Every deploy and every node drain is downtime, and the availability the buyer inherits has a ceiling.
helm/source/dep-helm.yaml — replicas: 1 |
kustomize/base/jackson-deployment.yaml — replicas: 1 |
kustomize/overlays/prod-eu/mocksaml/mocksaml-deployment.yaml — replicas: 1 |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
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