Read 2026-11-07
plotly/dash: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in plotly/dash's code and history at a553a10: 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 | not assessable |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
- Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongdash/dash.py is 3,009 lines, 42× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 71 lines. 9 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 3,009. 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.
dash/dash.py:1 — 3,009 lines (42× median) |
dash/dash-renderer/src/actions/dependencies.js:1 — 1,750 lines (24× median) |
components/dash-core-components/src/types.ts:1 — 1,628 lines (22× median) |
components/dash-table/src/dash-table/dash/DataTable.js:1 — 1,559 lines (21× median) |
dash/dash-renderer/src/actions/callbacks.ts:1 — 1,462 lines (20× median) |
A move from JavaScript to TypeScript began 99 months ago and is 70% done
adequate269 product files are in the new language and 116 are still in the old one, 99 months after the first new file appeared. The new language's share of the lines rose from 3% to 68%, and moved 7 percentage points in the last year. Two languages for one job doubles what an engineer has to know, and the unmoved half is usually what nobody wants to touch. Ask whether finishing it is planned, and what it costs.
| 116 old, 269 new |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongTests are retried until they pass
adequate31 tests are individually marked to retry. 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.
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongReleases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v4.4.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v1.12. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v4.4.1 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequateThe build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate5 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/benchmarks.yml:72 — action pinned by tag |
.github/workflows/post-test-status.yml:138 — action pinned by tag |
2 shell commands built from strings
adequate2 places run a command through a shell (`shell=True`, `os.system`, `exec` with a template) rather than passing arguments. Where any part comes from outside, it is command injection. Ask where each one's input comes from.
dash/development/build_process.py:71 — command run through a shell |
rerun_failed_tests.py:17 — command run through a shell |
10 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 1 high or critical
adequate10 of 721 locked dependencies match 17 published advisories in OSV, 1 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: only the build reaches them: a bundler, a code generator, a build plugin, or a lockfile in a tooling directory. This lockfile pins development tools alongside what ships and does not say which is which, so some of these may never reach a user.
package-lock.json — shell-quote 1.10.0: GHSA-pqg4-j6r4-53mv (critical), fixed in 1.11.0; reached only by the build |
@plotly/dash-jupyterlab/yarn.lock — fast-uri 3.1.8: GHSA-w74x-v6f9-j3xg (moderate), fixed in 3.1.9 |
package-lock.json — glob 13.0.6: GHSA-3g3m-2fjr-6pw4 (moderate), fixed in 14.0.2; reached only by the build |
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.
dash/dash-renderer/webpack.base.config.js:138 — source maps in a production build |
Manifest says proprietary, licence file says MIT
adequatepackage.json declares proprietary. LICENSE contains the text of MIT. Package managers and downstream users read the first; auditors and acquirers read the second. One of them is wrong, and until it is settled the terms this code is offered under are genuinely ambiguous.
package.json:3 — declares UNLICENSED |
LICENSE — text of MIT |
Observability & Operations
not assessableNot rated: only 5 of 16 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it.
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
Read more, or read your own
The full report on plotly/dash: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
Survey a repository: free on public repositories. Private code is read on your own machine by a collector whose source you can read first.