Read 2026-10-04
tryghost/ghost: technical due diligence, read from its repository
What Borehole read in tryghost/ghost's code and history at e54e63c: 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 | adequate |
| Security & Reliability Posture | adequate |
| Observability & Operations | adequate |
| Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
What the repository says
.gitmodules:1: 2 submodule(s) this survey does not read: ghost/core/content/themes/casper, ghost/core/content/themes/source
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
strongkoenig/kg-simplemde/debug/simplemde.js is 16,902 lines, 234× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 72 lines. 33 files exceed 1,000 lines, the largest being 16,902. 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.
koenig/kg-simplemde/debug/simplemde.js:1 — 16,902 lines (234× median) |
apps/shade/src/components/patterns/filters.tsx:1 — 3,537 lines (49× median) |
apps/activitypub/src/views/preferences/components/dots-pattern.tsx:1 — 3,374 lines (46× median) |
apps/activitypub/src/hooks/use-activity-pub-queries.ts:1 — 3,010 lines (41× median) |
ghost/core/core/server/services/members/members-api/repositories/member-repository.js:1 — 2,733 lines (37× median) |
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
adequate1 committed .only switches other tests off
adequate1 test file commits a focused `.only`, which runs that test and silently skips the rest of its suite. 29 skip markers across 15 of 3022 test files. Each is a failure somebody chose to stop seeing; the question is whether anyone is tracking them.
koenig/koenig-lexical/test/e2e/selection.test.ts:107 — committed .only: other tests do not run |
apps/ember-admin/tests/acceptance/editor-test.js:202 — skipped test |
apps/ember-admin/tests/acceptance/editor-test.js:542 — skipped test |
apps/ember-admin/tests/acceptance/error-handling-test.js:32 — skipped test |
Tests are retried until they pass
adequateThe suite is configured to retry failing tests (apps/comments-ui/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.
apps/comments-ui/playwright.config.ts:15 — test retry |
Product & Engineering Maturity
adequate170 direct dependencies in a single manifest
adequateghost/core/package.json declares 170 direct dependencies. Each one is a maintenance obligation, a supply-chain surface and a potential licence question that transfers with the asset. The count says nothing about whether any given dependency was a good choice; it says how many such choices a buyer inherits.
ghost/core/package.json — 170 declared |
apps/admin/package.json — 56 declared |
apps/shade/package.json — 45 declared |
apps/comments-ui/package.json — 16 declared |
Security & Reliability Posture
adequate3 credential-shaped strings in the tree sit in tests, examples, documentation or local development settings
adequateStrings shaped like credentials appear only where fakes are usual: test fixtures, examples, documentation, placeholders and local stacks. They are almost always fakes. Ask someone to confirm that none of them works anywhere, because a real key in a development file is still a real key. 4 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.
| 3 cited: Stripe live key, where fakes are usual |
4 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/fake-mailgun/Dockerfile — runs as root |
docker/ghost-dev/Dockerfile — runs as root |
docker/tb-cli/Dockerfile — runs as root |
docker/tinybird-local-slim/Dockerfile — runs as root |
2 environment files are committed
adequateapps/comments-ui/.env, apps/portal/.env are tracked in git. Environment files are where credentials usually live, and committing one usually means nobody decided how secrets reach the running application. Whatever is in it is in the history for good. Check 05.1 says whether it holds anything credential-shaped.
apps/comments-ui/.env — committed environment file |
apps/portal/.env — committed environment file |
The build runs third-party code it does not pin
adequate1 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/tinybird.yml:92 — download piped into a shell |
2 SQL statements built from strings
adequate2 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.
ghost/core/core/server/services/email-analytics/lib/queries.ts:418 — SQL built from a string |
ghost/core/core/server/models/comment.js:25 — SQL built from a string |
32 locked dependencies have published vulnerabilities, 18 high or critical in what ships
adequate32 of 4,267 locked dependencies match 66 published advisories in OSV, 37 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.
pnpm-lock.yaml — babel-traverse 6.26.0: GHSA-67hx-6x53-jw92 (critical); a development dependency |
pnpm-lock.yaml — axios 1.18.1: GHSA-3pq3-5fj3-cg6v (high), fixed in 1.20.0 |
pnpm-lock.yaml — brace-expansion 5.0.9: GHSA-6j4f-fj2g-mc7p (high), fixed in 5.0.10 |
76 places insert HTML from a variable without sanitising it
adequate76 places set HTML from a value that is neither a literal nor passed through a sanitiser. Where the value can come from a user, that is stored cross-site scripting, and it is the first thing a buyer's security review looks for in a frontend.
apps/activitypub/src/utils/content-formatters.ts:174 — HTML from a variable |
apps/activitypub/src/utils/content-formatters.ts:213 — HTML from a variable |
apps/activitypub/src/utils/content-formatters.ts:234 — HTML from a variable |
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.
apps/admin-x-framework/vite.config.ts:23 — source maps in a production build |
apps/shade/vite.config.ts:27 — source maps in a production build |
koenig/kg-unsplash-selector/vite.config.ts:17 — source maps in a production build |
71 advisories against this project in the last 24 months, 26 high or critical
adequateThe newest was published on 2026-10-01. A project that publishes advisories is telling its users about its fixes, and the count and pace say how much security work it carries. Whether 12 of them are fixed in the code you ship could not be told from this history: its version is only known to be at least 6.65.0. Answer lives in: the release you run, set against each fixed version.
| 2026-10-01: GHSA-fwh9-qg68-vxp4 (moderate), fixed in 6.67.0: Regular Expression Denial of Service in Content Import |
| 2026-10-01: GHSA-9m4w-fmjw-fvjq (moderate), fixed in 6.67.0: Regular Expression Denial of Service in External Media Inliner |
| 2026-10-01: GHSA-hqq2-xqr2-fmx2 (moderate), fixed in 6.67.0: Stored XSS via SVG Files in Content Imports |
| 2026-10-01: GHSA-69qc-f5m6-889c (high), fixed in 6.67.0: Stored XSS via Embed Card Previews |
| 2026-10-01: GHSA-788w-68h3-cvxp (high), fixed in 6.67.0: Remote Code Execution via Bookmark Card Images |
Observability & Operations
adequateNo structured logging library is in use
adequateNothing references a structured logging library. Logs that are written to be read by a person are not searchable by a machine, which means incident response here is proportional to how well someone remembers the codebase rather than to what the tooling can find.
| searched 7,885 files for 10 structured logging libraries; 0 matched |
The code branches on the environment's name at 17 places
adequate17 places outside configuration test whether they are running in production or staging. Staging then does not exercise production's code, and each deploy is the first run of those branches. Differences belong in configuration the code reads, not in the code.
apps/ember-admin/ember-cli-build.js:15 — branch on the environment name |
apps/ember-admin/ember-cli-build.js:15 — branch on the environment name |
apps/ember-admin/ember-cli-build.js:54 — branch on the environment name |
Fit with the Acquirer
not assessableNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
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The full report on tryghost/ghost: every dimension, the questions for the room, and the audit log.
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