eebca99 · 8,003 commits · 1,940 files
Issued 2026-10-01
Nothing significant. Questions worth asking about Engineering Process & SDLC Maturity, Organization & Key-Person Risk.
104 checks ran across 6 assessable dimensions. None found a significant problem; 3 raised something worth a question. 8 findings, each with evidence. One dimension cannot be assessed without an acquirer.
- 04.62 Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
- Words about people are today's: bands rather than exact shares, dates or day counts, and what the history measured rather than why.
- 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 | adequate | |
| 04 | Product & Engineering Maturity | adequate | |
| 05 | Security & Reliability Posture | not assessable | |
| 06 | Observability & Operations | not assessable | |
| 07 | Fit with the Acquirer | not assessable |
- 2% 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
- deep scan blamed 1,940 of 1,940 counted files
Architecture & Codebase — including AI provenance
01 · strong · ratings ↑print-802_11.c is 3,591 lines, 16× this codebase's median file
adequateThe median source file here is 213 lines. 8 files exceed 2,130 lines, the largest being 3,591. 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 305 surveyed projects' largest files, where this check begins to count.
| line-count | print-802_11.c:1 — 3,591 lines (16× median) |
| line-count | tcpdump.c:1 — 3,573 lines (16× median) |
| line-count | print-isoclns.c:1 — 3,547 lines (16× median) |
| line-count | print-isakmp.c:1 — 3,394 lines (15× median) |
| line-count | print-bgp.c:1 — 3,348 lines (15× 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 ↑Little of the recent change carries a trace of review
adequateIn the last 24 months, 32 of 370 commits (8.6%) carry any trace of review: a merge, a pull-request reference, a Reviewed-by or Reviewed-on trailer, a Closes/Fixes reference, a maintainer's sign-off on someone else's change, or a change applied by someone other than its author. That is low but not absent. Review may happen in a workflow this history does not record; a buyer should ask how change is approved before it ships.
| reviewable-arrivals | 32 of 370 commits in the last 24 months carry review evidence; 10.3% across all 8,003 |
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.
Tests cover a thin slice of the codebase
adequate10 test files against 269 source files (3.7%). 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.
| test-file-ratio | 10 test files / 269 source files |
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.
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: contribution guidance. 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.
A note that does not affect this rating: in Borehole's calibration, this check's notes were usually true but overstated.
| process-scaffolding | 1 of 5 markers present across 1,940 tracked files |
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 · adequate · ratings ↑Bus factor 1: recent work is concentrated in one contributor
adequateIn the last 24 months, one contributor authored more than half of 370 non-merge commits among 18 authors; across all history, a quarter or more of 7,759. This is the single most expensive thing to discover after closing, and the repository cannot tell you whether that person is part of the transaction.
| git shortlog -sn | last 24 months: top author more than half of 370 commits; bus factor 1; 18 authors |
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.
The contributor who wrote a quarter or more of this has not committed here for more than six months
adequateOne person authored a quarter or more of 7,759 commits and has not committed here for more than six months, while the repository has kept moving. The concentration figure alone would not show this. Whoever is changing this code now is not the person who wrote most of it, which is the situation an acquirer is usually told they are avoiding. The history shows only that no commits of theirs landed here, not why.
| last-commit-by-top-author | last commit more than six months ago, measured to the survey |
| git shortlog -sn | top author a quarter or more of 7,759 commits |
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.
Product & Engineering Maturity
04 · adequate · ratings ↑Releases are cut from another branch than the one surveyed
adequateThe newest release, tcpdump-4.99.7, is not on the branch this survey read; the newest release on it is tcpdump-4.6.0. The shipped product may differ from what this report describes. Survey the release branch too.
| 1c950db29 | tag tcpdump-4.99.7 |
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.
Effort is shifting from building to rewriting
adequateDeleted lines per line added rose from 0.35 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.
A note that does not affect this rating: in Borehole's calibration, this check's notes were usually true but overstated.
| deletions-per-insertion | first half 0.35, second half 0.81 (split 2013-03-30) |
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 · not assessable · ratings ↑Not rated: only 14 of 34 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it. What a person adds here.
Observability & Operations
06 · not assessable · ratings ↑Not rated: only 4 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
1 check 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 282 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 220 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 134 commits landed in the last year, against 236 the year before (-43%). Is that maintenance mode, a pivot, or fewer people working on it? The count looks the same for all three.
- 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 coverageNot rated: only 14 of 34 checks could reach a conclusion here; the rest do not apply to this repository or could not read it.
- 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 4 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 C codebase. Does your engineering organisation already run C in production, or would this be the first?
- The bulk of this system sits in missing/, cmake/. Which of your existing systems would each of those have to absorb or replace?
- Nothing in the repository says how this is deployed. Is it shipped as a library, a binary or a service, and if it runs somewhere, who owns that environment?
- 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.
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Rejection log — 96 signals that ran and did not fire
Appendix: rejection log — 96 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 — 45
| Signal | What it found |
|---|---|
| 04.hotspot_concentration | change is spread across the codebase rather than pooling in a few filesfiles 2,344 · top5 share 0.098 |
| 04.debt_markers | debt markers are sparsemarkers 335 · per kloc 2.69 · lines read 124,694 |
| 04.test_growth | test effort kept pace with code writtenlate test per code 0.008 · early test per code 0.003 |
| 04.fixes_with_tests | fixes usually come with a testfixes 60 · share 0.267 · with tests 16 |
| 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 287 |
| 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.active_contributors | more than one contributor active in the trailing yearall time 220 · active 12mo 13 |
| 03.knowledge_silos | every substantial directory has been touched by more than one personauthors 220 · directories 3 |
| 03.drive_by_contributors | an open contributor base, where one-commit contributors are normalauthors 220 · one off share 0.536 |
| 03.critical_path_ownership | more than one person changes the critical pathsauthors 18 |
| 03.second_contributor_attrition | the second and third contributors are still active |
| 03.bus_factor_trend | the team has not narrowed to one person |
| 02.release_cadence | tags are presenttags 51 |
| 02.conventional_commits | commit subjects generally carry contentsampled 7,759 · low content share 0.017 |
| 02.skipped_tests | few tests are switched offfocused 0 · skipped 0 · test files 1,650 |
| 02.revert_share | change is rarely undoneshare 0.008 · reverts 3 · recent commits 370 |
| 02.flaky_test_markers | tests are not retried until they passtest retries 0 · suite retries 0 |
| 02.commit_size | changes arrive in reviewable sizesshare 0.003 · commits 346 · over 2000 lines 1 |
| 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 27,351 · share of insertions 0.0311 |
| 01.message_uniformity | commit subjects vary in wording and lengthlength stdev 51.48 · repeat share 0.099 |
| 01.revision_depth | most files were revisited after they were first writtenfiles seen 281 · write once share 0.032 |
| 01.duplicated_blocks | little shipping code is repeated verbatim across filesshare 0.0006 · product files 259 · distinct blocks 69,061 |
| 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 287 |
| 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 852,348 |
| 05.secrets_management_pattern | no environment file is committed outside tests and examplesenv files 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.signing_material | no signing keystore or profile is committedfiles 0 |
| 05.license_vendored_unlicensed | no vendored third-party code is committedcomponents 0 |
| 05.license_grant_unclear | the licence is recognisable as BSD-2-Clauseclass permissive · license BSD-2-Clause |
| 05.committed_native_libraries | no widely used compiled library is committed to the productlibraries 0 |
| 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 212.5 · days since last tag 9 · commits last 90 days 26 |
| 03.single_maintainer | no file says one person maintains itstatements 0 |
Could not conclude, or did not apply — 51
Not a clean result. Each says why it could not answer here.
| Signal | Why |
|---|---|
| 04.dependency_sprawl | no recognised dependency manifest found |
| 04.eol_runtime | no pinned runtime version to check |
| 04.fix_share_trend | fewer than six busy quarters to compare |
| 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.structured_logging | not assessed for C, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 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 |
| 03.joiners_and_leavers | too few regular contributors to see a trend |
| 02.ci_runs_tests | no CI configuration to read |
| 02.ci_test_gating | no CI configuration to read |
| 02.dependency_update_cadence | no lockfile to date |
| 02.lint_in_build | too small, or no CI to wire a linter into (02.2) |
| 02.long_lived_branches | too few merges to judge (squash and rebase leave none) |
| 01.swallowed_errors | not assessed for C, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 01.build_reproducibility | no product Dockerfile to read |
| 01.notebook_outputs | not a data or machine-learning repository |
| 05.dependency_pinning | no manifest whose pinning can be read without a lockfile |
| 05.container_runs_as_root | no Dockerfile to read |
| 05.supply_chain_pinning | no CI actions or pipe-to-shell installs to check |
| 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.shell_from_strings | not assessed for C, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 05.unsafe_deserialization | not assessed for C, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 05.tls_verification_off | not assessed for C, the language the product is written in: this check's patterns read other languages only |
| 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 a frontend |
| 05.unsafe_html | not a frontend |
| 05.source_maps_shipped | not a frontend |
| 05.cleartext_traffic | not a mobile app |
| 05.dataset_provenance | not a data or machine-learning repository |
| 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 |
| 05.license_manifest_conflict | no packaging manifest states a licence |
| 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 |
| 04.dependency_churn | few dependencies were added and dropped within 60 days |
| 05.advisory_record | record incomplete: no advisory against the project in the last 24 months; NVD: 35 records name tcpdump with nothing tying them to this repository (CVE-1999-1024, CVE-2000-0333, CVE-2000-1026, …) |
| 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 M9ET-E9K6-AZQM 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/M9ETE9K6AZQM?via=badge)
A survey is a reading by a particular version of the assessor. Older readings are kept rather than replaced, because a verification mark attests to the survey it was issued for — overwriting one would make every code already in circulation read as tampered.
| Read | Assessor | Findings | Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-01 · shown | borehole 0.7.9 | 10 | adequate |
7 other readings (show)
| 2026-10-04 | borehole 0.7.13 | 10 | adequate |
| 2026-10-03 | borehole 0.7.12 | 10 | adequate |
| 2026-10-03 | borehole 0.7.11 | 10 | adequate |
| 2026-10-02 | borehole 0.7.10 | 10 | adequate |
| 2026-09-30 | borehole 0.7.8 | 9 | adequate |
| 2026-09-29 | borehole 0.7.6 | 9 | adequate |
| 2026-09-29 | borehole 0.7.5 | 9 | adequate |
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 — 3 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 | re-read from the facts kept at the last survey; nothing was cloned | facts version: 9308f48b62c9dddf |
| 8.0s | ran the deterministic checks | blame pass: Trueread working tree: False |
| 8.0s | recorded where this scan ran | attested: Falseenvironment: cloud-run |
Total 8.0s ·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).