LowEndInsight

Status: beta (0.16.0-beta.1)

LowEndInsight is in beta. Every published interface carries the pre-release version: the Hex package, the container image, the Zarf package and UDS bundle, the REST API (/openapi.json, GET /v1/health), the web UI (a banner on every page), the GitHub Action, the MCP client and the VS Code extension. Interfaces may change between betas, and breaking changes are listed in the CHANGELOG.

{:lowendinsight, "~> 0.16.0-beta.1"}   # pre-releases need an explicit opt-in

LowEndInsight is a simple "bus-factor" risk analysis library for Open Source Software managed within Git repositories. Provide a git URL, and the library responds with a structured report highlighting potential maintenance and supply-chain risks.

What's New

Version 0.16.0-beta.1

• The first beta, including the work prepared as 0.14.0 and 0.15.0, which was never published: full clones again, and contributor analysis on large repositories goes from minutes to seconds.
• npm lockfileVersion 3 (package-lock.json from npm 7+) is parsed; scanning a project with one used to crash.
• See CHANGELOG.md.

Version 0.10.0

• Requires Elixir 1.17+ and moves to httpoison 3 / hackney 4, which clears four hackney advisories.
• npm lookups fixed: replicate.npmjs.com answers 404 for every package, so npm scans had been analysing bare package names.
• yarn.lock: scoped packages keep their names, versions compare as versions, and yarn 2+ (berry) lockfiles parse.
• Lei.BatchAnalyzer.analyze/2 takes a :schedule function; a miss with no scheduler is reported "uncached" rather than a job id that names no work. cache_mode: "fresh" now bypasses the cache.
• See CHANGELOG.md for the full list, including the hosted service's security and background-work changes.

Version 0.9.1

• Maintenance and documentation cleanup.
• Standardized project references to GitHub.

Version 0.9.0

• SARIF Output: Generate SARIF reports for GitHub Security tab integration (mix lei.sarif).
• ZarfGate: Quality gate for CI/CD pipelines with configurable risk thresholds.
• AI Rules Generation: Generate rules for Cursor/GitHub Copilot (mix lei.generate_rules).
• Files Analysis: Binary file detection, README/LICENSE/CONTRIBUTING presence check.
• SPDX Parser: Full SPDX SBOM parsing support.

Why LowEndInsight?

If you are concerned about risks associated with upstream dependency requirements, LowEndInsight provides valuable, actionable information about the likelihood of critical issues being resolved.

• Single Contributor: A repo with one contributor isn't necessarily bad, but it carries risk. Are you prepared to fork it if the maintainer disappears?
• Stale Commits: If there hasn't been a commit in a significant amount of time, is it stable or just abandoned?
• Supply Chain: Vulnerability scanning is only part of the picture. LowEndInsight helps you weigh the human and activity-based risks before you include a dependency.

LowEndInsight provides a simple mechanism for investigating and applying basic governance (based on configurable tolerance levels) and responds with a useful report for integrating into your DevSecOps automation.

Key Metrics

• Functional Contributors: We've found that most projects receive the majority of contributions from one or two people. We report both the total number of contributors and "functional contributors" to identify true bus-factor risk.
• Commit Currency: Many projects are active, while others are dormant. This metric highlights potential supply-chain issues, such as whether a project is staying current with its own upstream dependencies.
• SBOM Presence: Adoption of standard Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) manifests (CycloneDX or SPDX) is often lagging. Lack of an SBOM highlights the need for better provenance and risk management.
• Recent Commit Change: High volatility could indicate instability or high activity. LowEndInsight measures recent change relative to the codebase size to prompt further due diligence.

Installation

LowEndInsight is available on Hex. Add it to your mix.exs:

def deps do
  [
    {:lowendinsight, "~> 0.9"}
  ]
end

For Scanning in a Mix-based Project

Add it as a development dependency:

defp deps do
  [
    {:lowendinsight, "~> 0.9", only: [:dev, :test], runtime: false}
  ]
end

Then run mix deps.get and mix lei.scan.

Usage

Scanning Local or Remote Repos

# Scan a remote repository
mix lei.analyze https://github.com/facebook/react

# Scan a local directory
mix lei.scan /path/to/local/repo

NPM-Based Projects

LowEndInsight can run against NPM projects. It requires an existing package.json for first-degree dependencies, and package-lock.json for a complete scan including transitive dependencies.

mix lei.scan /path/to/npm/project

Note: A local installation of Mix is still required.

SARIF Output for GitHub Security

Generate SARIF output for integration with GitHub's Security tab:

mix lei.sarif . --output lei-results.sarif

ZarfGate - Quality Gate for CI/CD

Fail CI pipelines when dependencies exceed risk thresholds:

# Fail if any dependency has high or critical risk
mix lei.gate . --threshold high

AI Rules Generation

Generate rules for AI coding assistants (Cursor, GitHub Copilot):

mix lei.generate_rules --target cursor

Example Report Output

{
  "state": "complete",
  "report": {
    "uuid": "caa7f920-aaa3-11ec-9c05-f47b09cc5c9a",
    "repos": [
      {
        "header": {
          "repo": "https://github.com/facebook/react",
          "start_time": "2022-03-23T12:21:13.234974Z",
          "end_time": "2022-03-23T12:21:39.762485Z",
          "duration": 26
        },
        "data": {
          "risk": "medium",
          "results": {
            "contributor_count": 1671,
            "functional_contributors": 97,
            "contributor_risk": "low",
            "commit_currency_weeks": 0,
            "commit_currency_risk": "low",
            "sbom_risk": "medium",
            "large_recent_commit_risk": "low"
          },
          "git": {
            "hash": "de516ca5a635220d0cbe82b8f04003820e3f4072",
            "default_branch": "refs/remotes/origin/main"
          }
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "metadata": {
    "risk_counts": { "medium": 1 },
    "repo_count": 1
  }
}

Configuration

LowEndInsight allows customization of risk levels. You can set these in your config/config.exs or via environment variables.

Example override:

LEI_CRITICAL_CURRENCY_LEVEL=60 mix lei.scan

GitHub Action

Add LowEndInsight to your GitHub workflow:

name: LowEndInsight
on: [push, pull_request]

permissions:
  contents: read
  security-events: write

jobs:
  lei:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v7
        with:
          fetch-depth: 0
      - id: lei
        uses: kitplummer/lowendinsight@v0.16.0-beta.1
      - uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
        with:
          sarif_file: ${{ steps.lei.outputs.sarif_file }}
          category: lowendinsight

Inputs, JSON mode and what changed from the old Docker action: gha.md.

Contributing

We welcome contributions!

• Bugs? Report them at GitHub Issues.
• Style: Run mix format before submitting. Documentation for functions is expected.
• Testing: Please write ExUnit tests for new code. Use mix test --cover to verify coverage.
• PRs: Submit atomic pull requests against main, after scripts/preflight.sh passes.

License

BSD 3-Clause. See LICENSE for details.

Includes code from mix-deps-json, Copyright (c) 2016 Andrew Nesbitt, MIT License.

Advanced Usage & Integration

For more specialized use cases, refer to the following:

• REST-y API: A sister project that wraps this library in an HTTP-based interface: lowendinsight-get.
• JSON Schema: The API schema is available in the schema/ directory, with documentation in schema/docs.
• REPL & Docker:
  • IEx: Run iex -S mix and use AnalyzerModule.analyze/3.
  • Docker:

    docker run --rm -v $PWD:/app -w /app -it elixir:latest bash -c "mix local.hex; mix deps.get; iex -S mix"

• Documentation: Detailed API docs are available via mix docs or on HexDocs.