Read 2026-10-04
supabase/realtime: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in supabase/realtime's code and history at 90ccb30: 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 | adequate |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
CONTRIBUTING.md:38: states a policy on AI-generated contributions
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongforum/lib/forum/muster/scope.ex is 2,251 lines, 32× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 70 lines. 4 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 2,251. 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.
forum/lib/forum/muster/scope.ex:1 — 2,251 lines (32× median) |
priv/repo/tenant_db_dump_17.sql:1 — 1,517 lines (21× median) |
priv/repo/tenant_db_dump_15.sql:1 — 1,516 lines (21× median) |
lib/realtime_web/channels/realtime_channel.ex:1 — 1,272 lines (18× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
strongNo finding.
Product & Engineering Maturity
strongNo finding.
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate11 credential-shaped strings committed to the tree
adequateMatches for JWT appear in tracked files outside test and fixture paths. They stay in the history even after they leave the tree, so what matters is whether each was rotated. The code cannot tell whether any of them is live, and that decides whether this matters: none sits in production configuration, and none is in a format its provider keeps for live keys. Is any of these live? Show that each was rotated after it was committed, and when. 14 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.
| 5 cited: JWT pattern matched |
The build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate2 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; 1 step pipes 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.
.github/workflows/lint.yml:110 — action pinned by tag |
.github/workflows/update-supabase-js.yml:55 — action pinned by tag |
Dockerfile:16 — download piped into a shell |
3 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities
adequate3 of 116 locked dependencies match 7 published advisories in OSV. 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.
4 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 1 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-09-24. 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. The record is incomplete: NVD: 51 records name realtime with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2014-7506, CVE-2015-7439, CVE-2019-19789, …).
| 2026-09-24: GHSA-9vjf-j9f7-j42c (high): Client-supplied bytes are spliced unvalidated into other subscribers' JSON frames, letting any broadcaster forge Realtime protocol events (including postgres_ch |
| 2026-08-17: GHSA-pfwq-rf2r-mjgc (low), fixed in 2.128.3: Unauthenticated log injection / terminal escape injection via OpenTelemetry baggage header |
| 2026-06-25: GHSA-rcr8-2525-4r7p (moderate), fixed in >= 2.111.2: Incorrect Authorization in supabase/realtime |
| 2026-06-16: GHSA-hg9h-6mhq-6c2v (low), fixed in >= 2.103.1: Expired JWTs with string exp are accepted by REST broadcast authorization |
Observability & Operations
adequateOne request cannot be followed through the logs
adequateNothing in the service carries a request or correlation id, and there is no tracing. When a customer reports a failure, the log lines that belong to their request cannot be picked out from everyone else's.
| no request id, correlation id or tracing found |
No 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 supabase/realtime: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
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