Emqx/ekka

Executive summary

The system holds an adequate overall standing of 69%, indicating a workable asset that carries manageable but distinct operational risks. While the underlying code is robust and the architecture is sound, the organization faces a critical gap in institutional knowledge that threatens long-term stability. This is not a fragile system, but it is one where the cost of losing context is disproportionately high compared to the effort required to fix it.

The value tied up in this small asset is modest, with a rebuild cost of approximately €5,100 or 0.1 person-years. Because the codebase is compact and free of boilerplate, the financial risk of a total loss is low. However, the business risk lies in the opacity of how decisions were made. The system’s weakest point is its maturity, which sits at 56%. This lens measures whether a new team can pick up the work without tribal knowledge. Without clear documentation, every change becomes a high-friction event, slowing delivery and increasing the likelihood of defects as engineers guess at historical context rather than following established patterns.

The biggest issue is the lack of recorded decision-making. When significant architectural or business choices are not documented, the organization loses the ability to learn from past trade-offs. This creates a hidden tax on every future sprint, as engineers must reverse-engineer the 'why' behind the 'what.' This risk is amplified by the absence of a changelog and clear testing instructions in the documentation. These are not technical failures but process gaps that erode confidence and slow onboarding. The security posture is strong at 95%, and the code health is excellent at 94%, meaning the system is safe to run and easy to modify technically. The danger is purely organizational: if the key engineer leaves, the institutional memory leaves with them.

What is genuinely good is the technical foundation. The architecture is clean, and the code is well-structured, meaning there is no need for a costly refactor. The system is reliable and secure, allowing the business to focus on feature delivery rather than firefighting. The dependency hygiene is partially measured, but the core logic is solid. This balance allows leadership to trust the current state while addressing the documentation gaps.

Where to focus first is on recording significant decisions. This single action has the most leverage because it immediately reduces the cost of future changes and protects the asset from knowledge loss. By documenting decisions in a standard format, the team creates a reusable reference that accelerates onboarding and reduces ambiguity. This should be done before adding a changelog or expanding test documentation, as it addresses the root cause of the maturity deficit. The picture is partial, as several advanced lenses like event-driven design were not measured, but the core risks are clear. Addressing the documentation gap will secure the asset’s value with minimal effort.

Top priorities

The highest-leverage moves; the full ranked list is in the Roadmap below.

Diagnosis — what's actually going on

At a glance — Code Health · 94% · Exemplary ·

At a glance — Architecture · 100% · Exemplary ·

At a glance — Maturity · 56% · Adequate · gated by D34, M2 ·

At a glance — Readiness · 64% · Adequate ·

At a glance — Security · 95% · Exemplary ·

Security & Compliance — OWASP Top-10 mapping

Findings mapped to OWASP categories; the specific CVEs/secrets are in the Security dimension cards below and findings.md (redacted only on the public version of this report).

Roadmap

Begin by documenting significant architectural decisions in a centralized location to capture context and consequences, and update the root README with clear instructions for running the test suite. Maintain a changelog to track release details and resolve any orphaned files to ensure knowledge remains current. Finally, address the identified documentation quality issues, starting with the README, to improve overall clarity and maintainability.

Ranked by impact ÷ effort. "Helps" is the estimated gain on the 0–100 health score.

File quality

Per-file score 0–10 — a quality signature. Of 6 files carrying findings, judged against the Production bar: 0% slop · 50% mixed · 50% near-clean.

How the grades work

Every finding carries one of four grades. Three say how serious it is. The fourth says this survey could not settle it — and it is a grade, not a gap.

Methodology & how to trust this report

Watchdog is a deep, periodic assessment — run each sprint, monthly, or quarterly, taking the time to go wider and deeper than a quick check and surfacing in one coherent report what you'd otherwise piece together from a dozen separate tools. It scores deterministically: the same commit yields the same score, every run. 24 of 27 evaluated dimensions are computed purely by tools and static analysis (confidence 1.0); 3 documentation/naming judgement(s) are LLM-assisted and labelled advisory. Overall confidence is 0.8 — the weighted average across measured dimensions; it falls as more of the score leans on LLM-assisted judgement and rises when it's fully tool-backed.

Every figure here is one of three kinds, and we label which: ✓ Measured — a deterministic fact (LoC, complexity, coverage); ~ Modeled — an estimate from a stated model (cost, effort, value-at-risk), always a range with its assumptions, never a precise fact; ◐ Advisory — an LLM prose judgement. We never present a modelled estimate as if it were measured. Perfect or absent scores carry their provenance too (ADR-0011): ✓ Tool-verified means the property itself was measured across the surface; ○ Nothing flagged means the probes came back clean — a claim bounded by what a repository can show; ⊘ Not evidenced means a working control (a tested restore, an automated rollback) showed no positive evidence — absence of evidence is not evidence of a control, so it's excluded from the score rather than awarded a spurious 10; ◐ Sampled · advisory marks an LLM verdict over a bounded sample — advisory, never a deterministic measurement.

Tools & methods

The actual versions used this run (captured at analysis time) — re-run on the same commit for the identical score.

Every finding is locatable in findings.md. Run 01a0fb85-0286-721b-9924-ab379d4a63b0.

The exact command behind every deep-scan dimension — tool, version, invocation and retained raw output — is in Appendix B — Reproduction & audit trail.

Run transparency — what happened this run

What ran differently this time — a tool absent, degraded, or that fell back to an estimate. Named openly, not folded silently into the scores. A degraded run also records its exact cause in diagnostics.md.

• D6 Cohesion (LCOM4) — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check's reader does not cover the language this repository's product is written in, so it had nothing of the product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding about this repository.
• D8 Code Coverage — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. Coverage NOT MEASURED: test source is present (.erl) but the built-in coverage collector has no runner for this repository's ecosystem — so this suite was never executed by it. Not scored — this is a gap in the analyzer's language coverage, not a defect in the repo. To have real coverage read, produce a coverage report in a standard format (`rebar3 do eunit --cover, cover` (or covertool for Cobertura XML)) and commit it — a hosted scan measures a clone of the repository, so a report that exists only in a working tree, a CI runner's or your own, never reaches it; the artefact is commonly gitignored, so `git add -f` that one file (or un-ignore its path) and commit it alongside the code it measures. You can widen what we reach: optional: produce a coverage report in a standard format (`rebar3 do eunit --cover, cover` (or covertool for Cobertura XML)) and commit it — a hosted scan measures a clone of the repository, so a report that exists only in a working tree, a CI runner's or your own, never reaches it; the artefact is commonly gitignored, so `git add -f` that one file (or un-ignore its path) and commit it alongside the code it measures — then the real number is read on the next scan.
• D11 Test Reliability — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. Test source is present (.erl) and this repository declares a rebar3 project (repository root, 1 test file, 15 Common Test suites), but it was not re-run: the analyzer environment could not run it. Not scored — this is a gap in the analyzer's language coverage, not a finding about this repository.
• D12 Dependency Hygiene — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. Not scored — 7 rebar3 declaration(s) across 1 `rebar.config` and 0 package(s) pinned by a committed `rebar.lock` were read for PINNING discipline (1 defect(s) reported), but the outdated/retired signal needs hex.pm, and no declaration here is resolved to a release by a committed rebar.lock, so this dimension's own question is only partly answered. NOT a finding that these dependencies are current or healthy.
• D14 License Compliance — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. Not scored — this repository's package manifest is not parsed for licence data yet. A gap in the analyzer's language coverage, NOT a finding that the repository's licenses are compliant (a rebar.config / erlang.mk DEPS (Hex)), which this pass does not parse yet — so this dimension asserts nothing about this repository's licensing in either direction.
• D22 Internal API Consistency — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. D22 identifies the intentionally-exposed surface from `IsPackable` and `.Contracts` project names, MSBuild conventions read off the loaded project set. This target exposed no such projects, so the probe never ran; this says nothing about whether the repository has a public API. This repository commits no C#/VB source at all, so there was never an MSBuild project set to read these conventions off. That is OUR side and it is a COLLECTOR gap, not an environment fault: it declares a published package (src/ekka.app.src), but no published-package marker D22 reads admitted any project here, so this ecosystem's public API has no collector, and the remedy is to write one — no change to the scan image can close it.
• AX6 Interface segregation — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is computed over the public interfaces this run's compilations declare, and none was loaded, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• C1 Data Protection — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. These personal data controls are read from declarative annotations, request middleware, entity/column names and guard methods in a C# source model, and none was loaded on this run, so there was nothing to gather. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository lacks personal data controls.
• C2 Access Controls — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. These authorization controls are read from declarative annotations, request middleware, entity/column names and guard methods in a C# source model, and none was loaded on this run, so there was nothing to gather. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository lacks authorization controls.
• C3 Audit Trail — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. These audit controls are read from declarative annotations, request middleware, entity/column names and guard methods in a C# source model, and none was loaded on this run, so there was nothing to gather. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository lacks audit controls.
• C4 Data Retention — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. These retention controls are read from declarative annotations, request middleware, entity/column names and guard methods in a C# source model, and none was loaded on this run, so there was nothing to gather. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository lacks retention controls.
• C5 Data-Subject Rights — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. These data-subject rights controls are read from declarative annotations, request middleware, entity/column names and guard methods in a C# source model, and none was loaded on this run, so there was nothing to gather. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository lacks data-subject rights controls.
• ED5 Idempotency — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check finds retry-prone mutations by walking the repository's declared types, and NONE was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to look at. That is a limit of the analyzer's reach — it reads .NET projects — not a finding that this repository has no command handlers or message consumers.
• GD1 Unfinished & placeholder code — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• IC1 Incompleteness & stubs — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• P10 Library API & versioning — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads NuGet packaging and C# public API, and npm, PyPI, crates.io, Maven/Gradle, Go module, RubyGems, Composer, SwiftPM, pub.dev and Hex package manifests only, and no .NET project and no package manifest of those ecosystems was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• P5 DR & Backup — not measured this run — This is a true statement about the repository that carries nothing for its owner to act on, so it is reported here rather than as a defect in their code. No backup/snapshot/replication config, RTO/RPO or restore-procedure documentation was found — and no production persistence was detected either (no data-access packages, no data-store services, no database resources), so there is nothing in this repository whose loss a DR control would recover. If this system's data lives in a platform or ops repo we can't see, that's where the DR evidence belongs.
• P8 Schema migrations — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads EF Core usage in C# and the schema tooling its file scan recognises only, and no .NET project was loaded, and this repository's language is not one the scan models, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• PF1 Benchmark discipline — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check's reader does not cover the language this repository's product is written in, so it had nothing of the product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding about this repository.
• S1 Web-Security Posture — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. These web-security controls are read from declarative annotations, request middleware, entity/column names and guard methods in a C# source model, and none was loaded on this run, so there was nothing to gather. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository lacks web-security controls.
• X1 Async correctness — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X12 Unreachable branch — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X13 Undrained process stream — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X14 Bypassable address classification — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X15 Unvalidated length from an untrusted reader — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X16 Unfloored truncation loop — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X17 Uncapped recursion over a caller-supplied document — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X18 Disposal-pattern correctness — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X19 Unrestored process-global state — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X2 Cancellation propagation — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X20 Mistyped argument guard — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X21 Side-effecting pattern guard — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X22 Contradicted release guard — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X23 Unguarded diagnostic materialisation — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X24 Document value interpolated into markup unescaped — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and JavaScript/TypeScript and Java source only, and no C# was loaded and no JavaScript/TypeScript or Java was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X25 Inert configuration knob — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and JavaScript/TypeScript and Java source only, and no C# was loaded and no JavaScript/TypeScript or Java was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X27 Collection changed while being enumerated — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and Java and Rust source only, and no C# was loaded and no Java or Rust was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X28 Index access outside its own emptiness guard — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and Scala source only, and no C# was loaded and no Scala was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X29 Per-element action decided by a fixed element — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and JavaScript/TypeScript, Java and Rust source only, and no C# was loaded and no JavaScript/TypeScript, Java or Rust was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X3 Exception handling — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X30 Support guard that admits what it rejects — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and Scala source only, and no C# was loaded and no Scala was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X4 Structured logging — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X5 Nullable reference types — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check is implemented over the C# syntax tree, and no C# was loaded on this run, so it had nothing to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X6 Hand-rolled structured-format parsing — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C# syntax, and Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Go, Java/Kotlin/Scala, Ruby, PHP and Rust source only, and no C# was loaded and none of those languages was found in this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.
• X7 Silent fallback defaults — not measured this run — Watchdog could not measure this here. That is a gap on our side — a collector, parser or image we have not built yet — and it is neither a defect in this repository nor evidence that the check would have passed. This check reads C#, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Rust, Go, Java and Kotlin syntax only, and no C#, Python, TypeScript/JavaScript, Rust, Go, Java or Kotlin was loaded for this repository, so it had nothing of this repository's product to read. That is a gap in this analyzer's language reach — not a finding that the repository is free of what this check looks for.

Repo exclusion declarations (.gitattributes linguist-generated/vendored, .editorconfig generated_code): none declared — every source file was scored.

Limitations & what we did not check

Watchdog assesses the repository exactly as committed, and only the repository. By design it does not reach outside the source tree: the live cloud account, the running CI/CD pipeline, the host's branch-protection and approval rules, the production configuration, or a restore actually exercised against a backup are all out of scope. That boundary is a feature, not a gap — a repo-relative, deterministic scan re-runs identically on any commit and every finding opens at a real file and line, where a live audit can neither be reproduced nor traced. The visible consequence is that controls which leave no in-repo evidence are reported as "not evidenced" and excluded from the score rather than awarded a number a static scan cannot justify.

Per-dimension blind spots

For each dimension that was measured, what a static, repo-only scan structurally cannot see — the honest edge of the measurement, not a failure of it.

• D1 Cyclomatic Complexity: Cyclomatic complexity counts branches statically — it cannot tell an essential decision tree from accidental tangle, nor see complexity that lives in data or configuration (large switch-case token tables, DSL lexers/parsers, data-as-code rule tables) rather than control flow: a tokenizer's many single-character cases read as high complexity though each branch is trivial.
• D2 Cognitive Complexity: Cognitive-complexity heuristics approximate how hard code is to follow; genuine domain difficulty and well-named intent that eases reading are not captured.
• D3 God Classes: "God class" is sized by members and responsibilities visible in the type — a deliberately broad facade over a coherent subsystem can read the same as an accidental grab-bag. For front-end JS the file-length check is cohesion-aware (a single-responsibility module — one class/IIFE — earns a 3× threshold), but cohesion is approximated from top-level declarations, not true dependency structure.
• D4 Code Duplication: Duplication is token-similarity — an in-process token-stream comparison over sliding windows, with type-aware normalization — so it finds copy-paste, not semantic duplication expressed differently. Committed machine-written code (scaffolded migrations, designer/codegen output, protobuf/OpenAPI stubs, model snapshots) is EXCLUDED — its repetition is the tool's, not the team's — so the score reflects hand-written duplication only.
• D13 Secret Scanning: Secret detection is signature- and entropy-based on the current tree — a secret that does not match a known pattern, or one already rotated, will not be flagged (a clean scan is "nothing matched", not "no secrets exist").
• D15 Churn × Complexity Hotspots: Churn hotspots come from git history — a freshly imported or squashed repository has no churn signal, and recent rewrites can mask a historically risky file.
• D16 Bus Factor: Bus-factor is a time-decayed model of commit attribution (who has recently, repeatedly worked a file), not comprehension — pairing, review and reading-without-committing spread knowledge it can't see; bot commits and shared accounts still distort it.
• D17 Explicit Debt: Acknowledged-debt signals (TODO/FIXME, suppressions, dead code) are textual — undocumented debt that nobody marked, and debt that lives in design rather than annotations, is invisible. Committed machine-written code (scaffolded migrations, designer/codegen output, generated stubs) is excluded — it is never the team's dead code to delete.
• D19 Documentation Quality: Documentation quality is judged by an LLM over a bounded sample of docs — it reads what is written, not whether the docs match the running system, and it is advisory, not a measurement. Its critique rows are drawn from a closed category vocabulary and each row means the same thing in every run, so two scans can be compared row by row; the SET that fires is still a sample, and does not repeat exactly. Measured on one frozen input, six scans at one engine SHA: 2-5 critique rows per scan, 8 distinct rows across the six, 3 of those 8 seen in only one scan. So a D19 row is evidence about the documentation, but a COUNT of D19 rows is not a quantity — never read a change in it as an improvement or a regression.
• D21 Naming Consistency: Naming quality is an LLM judgement over a bounded sample — it assesses clarity/consistency of the names it sees, not domain-correctness, and is advisory.
• D26 Project Cohesion: Project focus is sized from members/namespaces per project — a project that is broad by deliberate design reads the same as one that has sprawled.
• D28 Secrets (history): Secret-history scanning sweeps the git log for known patterns — a secret that predates the available history, or never matched a signature, is not found (clean means "nothing matched in the history we can see").
• D29 Static Analysis (SAST): SAST findings are pattern-based (semgrep) — it finds classes of bug it has rules for; logic flaws, auth/authorization gaps and issues needing runtime context are out of reach (and clean means "no rule matched").
• D34 Knowledge Freshness: Freshness is decayed commit RECENCY, not comprehension — code read often but rarely committed reads as orphaned, and stable code that genuinely needs no changes is penalised the same as forgotten code; bot/squash commits distort it like the bus factor.
• D35 Change Coupling: Change coupling is co-change in COMMITS — files split across separate commits, or coupled only through a shared config/build step, read as uncoupled, and a sweeping commit (rename/format) is excluded so it doesn't couple everything. It shows that files change together, not WHY: a high coupling can be a healthy cohesive pair as readily as a hidden leak.
• D44 Platform End-of-Life: The support table is FROZEN, so it goes out of date by losing RECALL: a release that ended support after the table was written is missed until the table is refreshed, and this dimension reading 10 is not evidence that a platform is current. Only platforms the repository DECLARES in a place this pass reads are seen — a runtime named only in a Dockerfile (D31's subject), in a CI workflow (D29's), or in a file this pass does not parse (go.mod, a Gemfile ruby directive) is invisible here, which is why a repository declaring none of them abstains rather than scoring. Only frameworks with a PUBLISHED support policy are tracked: React, Flask and Express publish none, so their age cannot be judged and their absence from a report is not a statement that they are supported.
• AX10 Code composition: Role is inferred from namespace/folder convention, not semantics — a domain concept living in a folder named "Services" reads as application, and the split is lines-of-code, not business value. The business-logic-share score is a SOFT, FLOORED signal: it contributes to the Architecture lens but is floored at the Critical gate, so an infrastructure-heavy design (a gateway, an ETL, a driver) is legitimately low without being nuked to zero.
• AX9 CQS / query purity: Handlers are found by interface/name convention — a query handler using neither is not seen. Mutation is a resolved write/publish invocation (SaveChanges/repository/bus), so a write hidden behind a hand-rolled wrapper, reflection, or a string-keyed service locator resolves to a non-persistence type and isn't flagged; it detects that a query writes state, not whether the write is a legitimate read-side cache update. Clean means "no resolved write/publish in a query body", not a proof of CQS purity.
• M4 Documentation accuracy: Onboarding quality is an LLM read of the docs/setup present — it cannot run the onboarding or measure how long a real new joiner takes; the verdict is sampled and advisory.
• P6 Release Hygiene: Rollback/observability controls are inferred from repo artefacts (pipelines, dashboards-as-code) — controls configured in external tooling, with no in-repo trace, cannot be credited.

The LLM boundary

LLM-set scores this run (3): D19, D21, M4 (model: Local LLM). For these, a model reads a bounded sample and sets the numeric score; each names its own sample and method on its card. They are sampled and advisory by design: they vary at the margins between runs and are never a deterministic measurement. Every other score in this report is tool-computed at confidence 1.0.

Dimensions

Frontend & cross-cutting dimensions

R = React/JS · M = Maturity · P = Readiness.

Reference — by lens

The score is the rank-weighted fold of these lenses (worst-heaviest), each including its meta-dimensions; a lens with a Critical contributor is capped at Fair (its band reads "gated by …") and is never the strongest area however high its average.

Appendix A — Findings (grouped)

The findings behind the scores, grouped by severity, then by dimension and kind. The high-severity issues are enumerated in full below; items per group are capped at 25 with any overflow stated explicitly per group, never silently truncated. The complete machine-readable list of every finding (all severities) is the companion findings.md in this report's bundle.

Appendix B — Reproduction & audit trail

Every external tool invocation behind a deep-scan dimension — the tool, its captured version, the exact command, how many findings it yielded, and a link to the retained raw output. To reproduce any finding: check out the same commit and run the command shown (repo-relative — never an absolute scratch path). The complete raw scanner output is retained verbatim under artifacts/raw/ (indexed in artifacts/raw/index.json); per-invocation exit codes and wall-clock durations are in sidecar.json — kept out of this table so the rendered report stays byte-identical across runs of the same commit.

Run 01a0fb85-0286-721b-9924-ab379d4a63b0 · every finding is also locatable in findings.md, and the complete scoring record (with exit codes + durations) in sidecar.json.

Issues: 1 · Warnings: 10 · Recommendations: 9 · Info: 1 — Appendix A · all findings · full markdown report.
Generated by Watchdog — deterministic code-health analysis. 02-10-2026 @ 07:29 UTC.