Read 2026-11-03
rivet-dev/rivet: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in rivet-dev/rivet's code and history at 4ab7e07: 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 | adequate |
| Product & Engineering Maturity | strong |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | not assessable |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongrivetkit-typescript/packages/rivetkit/src/registry/native.ts is 5,813 lines, 45× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 127 lines. 45 files exceed 1,270 lines, the largest being 5,813. 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.
rivetkit-typescript/packages/rivetkit/src/registry/native.ts:1 — 5,813 lines (45× median) |
engine/packages/sqlite-embedded/src/vfs/transport.rs:1 — 4,162 lines (32× median) |
engine/packages/depot-worker/src/tablet_maintainer_machine/runner.rs:1 — 3,476 lines (27× median) |
rivetkit-typescript/packages/rivetkit-wasm/src/lib.rs:1 — 3,275 lines (25× median) |
rivetkit-rust/packages/rivetkit-core/src/actor/metrics.rs:1 — 3,145 lines (24× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
adequateTests cover a thin slice of the codebase
adequate22 test files against 1,579 source files (1.4%). This does not measure whether the tests are good, only whether enough of them exist for the codebase to be changed safely by someone who did not write it — which is exactly the situation after an acquisition.
| 22 test files / 1,579 source files |
Almost no process scaffolding exists in the repository
adequateOf five ordinary markers — CI workflows, CODEOWNERS, a pull-request template, pre-commit hooks, contribution guidance — 1 is present: CI workflows. Branch protection itself is a GitHub setting rather than a file, so this is a reading of proxies and not of the rules themselves. What it does establish is that the process is not written down anywhere a new engineer would find it.
| 1 of 5 markers present across 3,408 tracked files |
Tests are retried until they pass
adequateThe suite is configured to retry failing tests (rivetkit-typescript/packages/rivetkit/src/test/ready.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.
rivetkit-typescript/packages/rivetkit/src/test/ready.ts:17 — test retry |
8% of recent commits change more than 2,000 lines
adequate265 of 3361 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.
| 265 commits over 2,000 lines |
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongEffort is shifting from building to rewriting
adequateDeleted lines per line added rose from 0.57 to 0.81 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 0.57, second half 0.81 (split 2025-02-23) |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequateNone of the standard security guard rails are configured
adequateThere is no disclosure policy, no automated dependency updates, no named code owners and no pre-commit configuration. None of these is load-bearing on its own. Their collective absence says that security posture here is whatever the current team happens to remember to do, which is not a posture that survives the team changing.
| checked 5 kinds of guard rail across 3,408 tracked files; 0 present |
2 Dockerfiles run the application as root
adequateNo 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.
docker/compute-hello-world/Dockerfile — runs as root |
docker/engine/Dockerfile — runs as root |
The build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate12 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/claude-code-review.yml:39 — action pinned by tag |
.github/workflows/compute-hello-world.yml:25 — action pinned by tag |
14 SQL statements built from strings
adequate14 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.
integrations/workflow-world/src/actors/workflow-run.ts:1252 — SQL built from a string |
integrations/flue-runtime/src/stores/run-store.ts:89 — SQL built from a string |
integrations/flue-runtime/src/stores/submission-store.ts:46 — SQL built from a string |
75 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 8 high or critical in what ships
adequate75 of 2,677 locked dependencies match 191 published advisories in OSV, 78 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.
pnpm-lock.yaml — handlebars 4.7.9: GHSA-8r5x-fm3f-whwj (critical), fixed in 4.7.10 |
pnpm-lock.yaml — better-auth 1.6.23: GHSA-965c-763c-88jm (critical), fixed in 1.7.7; a development dependency |
pnpm-lock.yaml — next 16.1.1: GHSA-2464-fhr4-w9xw (critical), fixed in 16.4.1; a development dependency |
Observability & Operations
not assessableAn error reporter is installed but never initialised
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 |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
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The full report on rivet-dev/rivet: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
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