Read 2026-10-22
semgrep/semgrep: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in semgrep/semgrep's code and history at 087e93b: 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 | adequate |
| 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
LICENSE: Relicensed: LGPL-2.1 → LGPL-2.1 WITH OCaml-LGPL-linking-exception (2022-04-19) → LGPL-2.1 (2022-04-27).gitmodules:1: 1 submodule(s) this survey does not read: tests/semgrep-rules
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
adequatelanguages/terraform/tree-sitter/semgrep-hcl/lib/parser.c is 32,024 lines, 1883× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 17 lines. 174 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 32,024. 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.
languages/terraform/tree-sitter/semgrep-hcl/lib/parser.c:1 — 32,024 lines (1883× median) |
languages/lua/tree-sitter/semgrep-lua/lib/parser.c:1 — 25,348 lines (1491× median) |
languages/cairo/tree-sitter/semgrep-cairo/lib/parser.c:1 — 25,320 lines (1489× median) |
languages/jsonnet/tree-sitter/semgrep-jsonnet/lib/parser.c:1 — 18,644 lines (1096× median) |
languages/circom/tree-sitter/semgrep-circom/lib/parser.c:1 — 17,604 lines (1035× median) |
1 base image floats: no version, or `latest`
adequate1 of 10 `FROM` lines in product Dockerfiles name an image without a version, or with `latest`. Each build pulls whatever the registry serves that day, so the image that ships can change without a commit, and last month's build cannot be reproduced. Pin a version, or a digest.
Dockerfile:451 — base image without a version |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongNo finding.
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongReleases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v1.182.0, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v1.165.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| tag v1.182.0 |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate4 shell commands built from strings
adequate4 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.
perf/config.py:96 — command run through a shell |
perf/config.py:97 — command run through a shell |
perf/config.py:98 — command run through a shell |
19 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 15 high or critical in what ships
adequate19 of 173 locked dependencies match 37 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.
libs/ocaml-tree-sitter-semgrep/lang/semgrep-grammars/package-lock.json — minimist 1.2.5: GHSA-xvch-5gv4-984h (critical), fixed in 1.2.6 |
cli/uv.lock — cryptography 46.0.3: GHSA-537c-gmf6-5ccf (high), fixed in 48.0.1 |
cli/uv.lock — protobuf 6.33.4: GHSA-7gcm-g887-7qv7 (high), fixed in 6.33.5 |
Relicensed: LGPL-2.1 → LGPL-2.1 WITH OCaml-LGPL-linking-exception (2022-04-19) → LGPL-2.1 (2022-04-27)
adequateThe root licence changed 2 time(s). Code taken under earlier terms stays under them; check which terms any fork or customer relied on.
Observability & Operations
not assessableNo 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 |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
Read more, or read your own
The full report on semgrep/semgrep: 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.