76fc2d3 · 6,635 commits · 12,825 files
Issued 2026-10-23
Reads strong: 3 of 5 rated dimensions are strong, 2 are adequate and none is significant.
104 checks ran across 6 assessable dimensions. Security & Reliability Posture and Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity are adequate. 6 findings, each with evidence. One dimension cannot be assessed without an acquirer.
This repository reads strong. Show it in your README: the badge links to a page where anyone can check the reading. If you embed it: link it to the report, remove it if the report is delisted, and do not present it as a certification or an endorsement.
[](https://borehole.dev/verify/S0RHGJ41S3ZF?via=badge)- 04.62 Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
- states a policy on AI-generated contributions CONTRIBUTING.md:20
- names OpenSSF README.md:8
- 2 findings from checks Borehole's calibration found wrong more often than right are no longer published.
| Dimension | Rating | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance | strong | |
| 02 | Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity | adequate | |
| 03 | Organization & Key-Person Risk | strong | |
| 04 | Product & Engineering Maturity | strong | |
| 05 | Security & Reliability Posture | adequate | |
| 06 | Observability & Operations | not assessable | |
| 07 | Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
- 41% of non-merge commits carry any trailer at all
- low trailer coverage: the convention may not be in consistent use
- no widespread author/committer date divergence
- the declared share is neither decisive nor negligible, so the true figure is more sensitive to undeclared work
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
01 · strong · ratings ↑haystack/core/pipeline/base.py is 1,992 lines, 12× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 157 lines. 1 file exceed 1,570 lines, the largest being 1,992. 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.
A note that does not affect this rating: measured against its own codebase's median, it is below the 85th percentile of 382 surveyed projects' largest files, where this check begins to count.
| line-count | haystack/core/pipeline/base.py:1 — 1,992 lines (12× median) |
Respond to this finding
Your response is published beside the finding, not instead of it. A finding you can argue with is the point — and a wrong one is calibration data we want.
An owner's response is removed only when it is unlawful, impersonates someone, publishes personal data or a credential, or is not about the finding. Disagreeing with the report is never a reason. To report a response, or to reach us about one, write to takedown@borehole.dev.
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
02 · adequate · ratings ↑7% of recent commits change more than 2,000 lines
adequate175 of 2557 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.
| git log --numstat | 175 commits over 2,000 lines |
Respond to this finding
Your response is published beside the finding, not instead of it. A finding you can argue with is the point — and a wrong one is calibration data we want.
An owner's response is removed only when it is unlawful, impersonates someone, publishes personal data or a credential, or is not about the finding. Disagreeing with the report is never a reason. To report a response, or to reach us about one, write to takedown@borehole.dev.
Organization & Key-Person Risk
03 · strong · ratings ↑No finding. 10 checks ran and none fired; the rejection log below says why each did not.
Product & Engineering Maturity
04 · strong · ratings ↑Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, v3.4.1, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is v1.8.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
A note that does not affect this rating: notes like it are common in well-run projects.
| 7f0ab62af | tag v3.4.1 |
Respond to this finding
Your response is published beside the finding, not instead of it. A finding you can argue with is the point — and a wrong one is calibration data we want.
An owner's response is removed only when it is unlawful, impersonates someone, publishes personal data or a credential, or is not about the finding. Disagreeing with the report is never a reason. To report a response, or to reach us about one, write to takedown@borehole.dev.
Security & Reliability Posture
05 · adequate · ratings ↑1 Dockerfile runs 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.
| no-USER-instruction | .clusterfuzzlite/Dockerfile — runs as root |
Respond to this finding
Your response is published beside the finding, not instead of it. A finding you can argue with is the point — and a wrong one is calibration data we want.
An owner's response is removed only when it is unlawful, impersonates someone, publishes personal data or a credential, or is not about the finding. Disagreeing with the report is never a reason. To report a response, or to reach us about one, write to takedown@borehole.dev.
12 dependencies float, and no lockfile is committed
adequateDependency versions are declared as ranges and no lockfile is committed, so a build today does not necessarily produce what a build last month produced. That matters twice over in a transaction: the thing being bought cannot be reproduced exactly, and a compromised upstream release arrives without anyone choosing to take it.
A note that does not affect this rating: in Borehole's calibration, this check's notes were usually true but overstated.
| unpinned | docs-website/package.json:28 — ^3.0.0 |
| unpinned | docs-website/package.json:29 — ^5.0.6 |
| unpinned | docs-website/package.json:30 — ^24.0.3 |
| unpinned | docs-website/package.json:31 — ^2.0.0 |
| unpinned | docs-website/package.json:32 — ^0.0.1 |
Respond to this finding
Your response is published beside the finding, not instead of it. A finding you can argue with is the point — and a wrong one is calibration data we want.
An owner's response is removed only when it is unlawful, impersonates someone, publishes personal data or a credential, or is not about the finding. Disagreeing with the report is never a reason. To report a response, or to reach us about one, write to takedown@borehole.dev.
1 deserialiser that can run code
adequate1 places read data with a deserialiser that executes what it reads (`yaml.load` without a safe loader). That is safe on data the system wrote itself and remote code execution on anything else. Ask where each one's input comes from.
A note that does not affect this rating: in Borehole's calibration, this check's notes were usually true but overstated.
| haystack/marshal/yaml.py | haystack/marshal/yaml.py:40 — code-executing deserialiser |
Respond to this finding
Your response is published beside the finding, not instead of it. A finding you can argue with is the point — and a wrong one is calibration data we want.
An owner's response is removed only when it is unlawful, impersonates someone, publishes personal data or a credential, or is not about the finding. Disagreeing with the report is never a reason. To report a response, or to reach us about one, write to takedown@borehole.dev.
Observability & Operations
06 · not assessable · ratings ↑Not rated: only 5 of 16 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it. What a person adds here.
Fit with the Acquirer
07 · not assessable · ratings ↑Not rated: structurally not assessable from a repository. What a person adds here.
Check it on the running system
2 checks against the running system follow from the findings above: what a buyer's engineer will try, how to run it first, and what to have ready. A paid survey of this repository includes them.
A paid survey of a public repository is also reviewed: a language model reads each finding against the code and withdraws only findings it judges the code contradicts, each listed with its reason. The review is a language model's reading of the findings against the code, and it can be wrong. It never adds a finding, never raises a band, and never removes a finding from a proven check or an advisory that affects the surveyed version.
What a person adds
The survey reads what the repository can show. The code cannot settle these questions, and on them this report states nothing. Each says where its answer lives: your own engineer, the company, or an assessor you choose can settle it. Questions marked measured open with something this repository shows.
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
01 · full coverage- measured No architecture or design document is in the tree, across 11,628 product files. Where does the design live, and who holds it?
- Is the architecture right for the next three years of the product?
- Were the home-grown components reasonable choices when they were made, and are they now?
Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity
02 · high coverage- Is review real or a rubber stamp? Comment depth and time to approve need the pull request history.
- Is delivery planned and measured, or heroic?
- How are incidents run, reviewed and learned from?
Organization & Key-Person Risk
03 · partial coverage- measured 510 people have committed here. Which of them are you acquiring, and which are you replacing?
- Who mentors whom, and would that survive a departure?
- Can the team grow, and who stands behind the top three contributors?
- Is the seniority mix sound, and will pay survive your salary bands?
- Is the pace sustainable? Commit times cannot say: git keeps no reliable local time.
- Does the team want to stay after close?
- How are decisions made and disagreements resolved?
Product & Engineering Maturity
04 · minimal coverage- measured 2,028 commits landed in the last year, against 652 the year before (+211%). What drove it: new people, a deadline, or code produced faster than before?
- measured No experiment tracking is configured in the repository. How was the shipped model trained and evaluated, and could it be reproduced?
- measured No model card is in the tree. What is the model's intended use, what was it trained on, and where does it fail?
- Can this team deliver the stated roadmap on the stated timeline?
- Does leadership know about the debt, and is time budgeted to repay it?
- Is the engineering shape consistent with the commercial story?
Security & Reliability Posture
05 · partial coverage- What has actually broken, how often, and how badly?
- What did external testing find, and was it fixed?
- What is the SOC 2, ISO 27001 or GDPR status, and where is the evidence?
Observability & Operations
06 · partial coverageNot rated: only 5 of 16 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it.
- Are the dashboards opened, the alerts acknowledged and the pages answered?
- Are the service-level objectives actually met?
- Who carries the pager, and how often does it go off?
- What does it cost to run, and how much headroom is there?
Fit with the Acquirer
07 · none coverageNot rated: structurally not assessable from a repository.
- This is primarily a Python codebase. Does your engineering organisation already run Python in production, or would this be the first?
- The bulk of this system sits in docs-website/, haystack/, pydoc/. Which of your existing systems would each of those have to absorb or replace?
- The repository carries deployment configuration (.clusterfuzzlite/Dockerfile and 1 more). Does that match your deployment and on-call model, or does it need rehosting first?
- What is your tolerance for the findings above remaining unaddressed for the first two quarters after close, given everything else that will compete for this team's time?
- Which of these systems duplicate yours, and which get retired?
- What will integration cost, and in what order?
- Where does the team land in your organisation, and who reports to whom?
- Are there earn-outs, retention packages or contractor IP to assign?
- Do customer contracts limit hosting, regions or vendors?
A human assessment is Borehole's own paid service, €12,000+ (total price is determined per engagement; travel billed at cost). It is not independent of this report: the same business produced both. It is a separate contract, with its own scope, terms and reliance.
Embed the badge
Tied to this commit and this date, and it fades after 90 days — an honest badge is one that expires. A repository with significant findings gets a neutral "read" badge rather than a red one: the library is where the range is visible, not someone else's README.
[](/r/deepset-ai/haystack/76fc2d3)If you embed it: link it to the report, remove it if the report is delisted, and do not present it as a certification or an endorsement.
Rejection log — 98 signals that ran and did not fire
Appendix: rejection log — 98 signals that ran and did not fire
Published on purpose. A signal that looked and decided not to fire has told you something, and this is the calibration data behind every threshold above.
Looked, and found nothing — 65
| Signal | What it found |
|---|---|
| 04.hotspot_concentration | change is spread across the codebase rather than pooling in a few filesfiles 30,693 · top5 share 0.016 |
| 04.debt_markers | debt markers are sparsemarkers 5 · per kloc 0.0 · lines read 1,680,241 |
| 04.dependency_sprawl | direct dependency counts are unremarkable |
| 04.test_growth | test effort kept pace with code writtenlate test per code 1.388 · early test per code 0.417 |
| 04.churn_trend | rework is not rising against new worklate delete per insert 0.503 · early delete per insert 0.478 |
| 04.fixes_with_tests | fixes usually come with a testfixes 615 · share 0.761 · with tests 468 |
| 04.fix_share_trend | fixing is not crowding out building |
| 06.telemetry_presence | this repository does not deploy a running service, so instrumentation is not expected of itbasis nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere · files read 5,153 |
| 06.structured_logging | not a running service; structured logging is not expected of a librarybasis nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.healthcheck_presence | not a running service, so a health endpoint is not expectedbasis nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.usage_reporting_default | the product's code names no reporting hostsettings on 0 · settings off 0 |
| 06.migrate_on_start | migrations do not run at container start |
| 03.contributor_concentration | no single contributor dominates the last 24 monthsyears 6.9 · window last 24 months · authors 510 |
| 03.active_contributors | more than one contributor active in the trailing yearall time 510 · active 12mo 226 |
| 03.knowledge_silos | every substantial directory has been touched by more than one personauthors 510 · directories 7 |
| 03.drive_by_contributors | an open contributor base, where one-commit contributors are normalauthors 510 · one off share 0.62 |
| 03.contributor_attrition | no contributor dominates enough for their absence to matterauthors 510 · top share less than a quarter · top contributor last committed within the last three months |
| 03.critical_path_ownership | more than one person changes the critical pathsauthors 275 |
| 03.second_contributor_attrition | the second and third contributors are still active |
| 03.bus_factor_trend | the team has not narrowed to one person |
| 03.joiners_and_leavers | the team is not shrinkingleft 6 · joined 50 · regular last year 62 |
| 02.merge_discipline | a meaningful share of recent change carries evidence of reviewmerges 15 · window last 24 months · with tracked 17 |
| 02.ci_presence | CI configuration is present in the working treecount 37 |
| 02.test_presence | tests are present in a normal proportion to sourcetests 305 · source 583 · test ratio 0.523 |
| 02.release_cadence | tags are presenttags 336 |
| 02.conventional_commits | commit subjects generally carry contentsampled 6,600 · low content share 0.003 |
| 02.branch_protection_hints | process scaffolding is present in the repository |
| 02.skipped_tests | few tests are switched offfocused 0 · skipped 4 · test files 361 |
| 02.ci_test_gating | no test run in CI is written so that it cannot failconfigs 37 |
| 02.revert_share | change is rarely undoneshare 0.001 · reverts 4 · recent commits 2,682 |
| 02.flaky_test_markers | tests are not retried until they passtest retries 4 · suite retries 0 |
| 02.lint_in_build | a linter or formatter runs in the buildwired 5 · ci configs 37 · product files 278 |
| 01.burst_import | no commit run met both the rate and the net-addition thresholdgap seconds 180 · min add ratio 3.0 · min net added 2,000 |
| 01.initial_dump | first commit is not a disproportionate share of the codebaseinsertions 1,199 · share of insertions 0.0003 |
| 01.message_uniformity | commit subjects vary in wording and lengthlength stdev 21.13 · repeat share 0.01 |
| 01.duplicated_blocks | little shipping code is repeated verbatim across filesshare 0.016 · product files 278 · distinct blocks 38,657 |
| 01.swallowed_errors | errors are rarely thrown awayloc 1,685,337 · files 5 · per kloc 0.0 |
| 01.build_reproducibility | every base image names a versionfloating 0 · from lines 1 |
| 01.unfinished_migration | no language migration is stalled halfway |
| 01.weights_in_git | no model weights are committedfiles 0 |
| 05.committed_secrets | no credential-shaped strings outside test and fixture pathsnote the working tree only; the history is 05.5 · patterns 8 · files read 5,153 |
| 05.security_guardrails | at least one standard guard rail is configured |
| 05.license_present | a licence file is presentfound True |
| 05.secrets_in_history | no credential-shaped string was ever added outside test and fixture pathspatterns 8 · truncated False · added lines 3,446,914 |
| 05.secrets_management_pattern | no environment file is committed outside tests and examplesenv files 0 |
| 05.supply_chain_pinning | third-party build steps are pinned, or fewaction refs 112 · pipe to shell 0 · unpinned third party 0 |
| 05.shell_from_strings | product code does not build shell commands from stringssites 0 |
| 05.tls_verification_off | no TLS verification is switched off in product codefiles 0 · sites 0 · pinned instead 0 |
| 05.privileged_workloads | no workload runs privileged or in the host's namespacessites 0 · behind a setting or built here 0 |
| 05.credentials_in_deploy_config | deployment configuration references secrets, never holds themfiles 0 · sites 0 |
| 05.source_maps_shipped | production builds do not publish source mapssites 0 |
| 05.signing_material | no signing keystore or profile is committedfiles 0 |
| 05.dataset_provenance | little data is committeddata files 0 · licence or card files 0 |
| 05.license_manifest_conflict | manifest and licence file agree on Apache-2.0license Apache-2.0 |
| 05.license_vendored_unlicensed | no vendored third-party code is committedcomponents 0 |
| 05.license_grant_unclear | the licence is recognisable as Apache-2.0class permissive · license Apache-2.0 |
| 05.committed_native_libraries | no widely used compiled library is committed to the productlibraries 0 |
| 04.dependency_churn | few dependencies were added and dropped within 60 daysdependencies seen 158 · added in two years 41 · removed within 60 days 3 |
| 04.ci_platforms_dropped | no platform was dropped from CI in the last two years |
| 04.repository_status | the README's first screen states no end, move or freezestatements 0 |
| 02.development_elsewhere | nothing says development happens elsewhereno pr statements 0 · mirror statements 0 · replayed commit share 0.0 |
| 05.licence_changes | the root licence has not changed in the history readlicence versions 1 · unreleased changes 0 |
| 05.paid_edition | no directory carries a separate paid-edition licencedirectories 0 |
| 04.releases_stopped | releases keep pace with developmentmedian gap days 0.0 · days since last tag 2 · commits last 90 days 756 |
| 03.single_maintainer | no file says one person maintains itstatements 0 |
Could not conclude, or did not apply — 33
Not a clean result. Each says why it could not answer here.
| Signal | Why |
|---|---|
| 04.eol_runtime | no pinned runtime version to check |
| 04.schema_churn | no schema migrations to read |
| 04.compat_layers | a library, whose compatibility code is usually deliberate |
| 04.dependency_redundancy | no JavaScript manifest to read |
| 06.telemetry_depth | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.print_logging | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.correlation_ids | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.error_reporting | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.alert_rules | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.deployed_image_floats | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.probes_identical | no Kubernetes probes |
| 06.single_replica | no Kubernetes deployments |
| 06.environment_branching | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.release_markers | not expected of it: nothing in this repository deploys a long-running server; if it runs as one, its deployment lives elsewhere |
| 06.feature_flags | no feature-flag service; flags may live elsewhere |
| 02.dependency_update_cadence | no lockfile to date |
| 02.long_lived_branches | too few merges to judge (squash and rebase leave none) |
| 01.notebook_outputs | too few notebooks |
| 05.outbound_timeouts | not a running service |
| 05.migration_reversibility | too few migrations to judge |
| 05.sql_from_strings | not a running service; a library that builds SQL is doing its job |
| 05.resource_limits | no Kubernetes workload manifests |
| 05.known_vulnerabilities | no lockfile this survey can read, or a collector older than 0.4.0 |
| 05.public_env_secret | not assessed for Python, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 05.unsafe_html | not assessed for Python, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 05.cleartext_traffic | not a mobile app |
| 05.license_copyleft_inherited | no third-party code is committed to this repository, so the licences it depends on are resolved at build time and are not readable here |
| 04.flags_accumulating | few or no feature flags in the history |
| 04.api_versions_coexisting | not a running service |
| 04.deprecations_lingering | a library, which keeps deprecated interfaces for its users |
| 05.project_advisories | record incomplete: no advisory found in the sources that answered; NVD: 2 records name haystack with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2026-105315, CVE-2026-80490); 2 are fixed in the surveyed commit, and the release users run is not placed by this history |
| 05.advisory_record | record incomplete: no advisory against the project in the last 24 months; NVD: 2 records name haystack with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-2026-105315, CVE-2026-80490) |
| 05.project_exploited | no affecting advisory is on CISA's Known Exploited list |
Anyone can check this report against the authoritative record — click the stamp, or enter S0RH-GJ41-S3ZF at borehole.dev/verify.
The code commits to the 106 checks this run performed, the bands they produced, and the commit they were read at. It does not cover checks written since.
Put the mark in your README
The image is wrapped in a link to the verification page, so a reader can check it rather than take it on trust. If you embed it: link it to the report, remove it if the report is delisted, and do not present it as a certification or an endorsement.
[](https://borehole.dev/verify/S0RHGJ41S3ZF?via=badge)
5 pieces of evidence on this report quote the repository directly. Four checks quote text: up to five TODO-style comments, up to four commit subjects, up to five unpinned dependency lines and one status line from the README's first screen, such as “no longer maintained”. In each case the text is the evidence, which is why it is kept by default.
This rewrites every stored reading of this repository, and every later reading, including a re-read, is stored without the quoted text. The facts we keep to re-read it still hold the lines, as the privacy notice says. The pointers stay.
Where this scan ran
This scan ran on ordinary cloud infrastructure (cloud-run), not in a hardware-isolated confidential VM. Nothing about it is attested by Google.
What an attested survey proves, and what it does not.
What this scan did with the repository — 7 steps
Written by the steps themselves as they ran, not described afterwards. A hand-written account of a data flow drifts the first time somebody changes the flow and not the account.
| At | Step | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| 0.0s | read repository metadata from the GitHub API | size mb: 409.6authenticated: False |
| 61.7s | cloned the repository to a temporary directory | depth: full |
| 69.9s | read the git history | commits: 6635tracked files: 12825 |
| 189.8s | ran the deterministic checks | blame pass: Falseread working tree: False |
| 189.8s | recorded where this scan ran | attested: Falseenvironment: cloud-run |
| 271.0s | kept the facts, never the source, for re-reading under new checks | |
| 271.0s | deleting the working copy |
Total 271.0s ·source content sent off this machine: none · calls to a language model: 0 · the clone was deleted when the survey ended
An automated reading of a repository's code and its history up to one commit, with public advisory records. It may be wrong, it is not legal, financial, investment or security advice, and it does not replace diligence by a qualified person. It is provided for information: nobody may rely on it (Borehole's terms, section 3).