sentinel

Projects that follow the best practices below can voluntarily self-certify and show that they've achieved an Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) best practices badge.

There is no set of practices that can guarantee that software will never have defects or vulnerabilities; even formal methods can fail if the specifications or assumptions are wrong. Nor is there any set of practices that can guarantee that a project will sustain a healthy and well-functioning development community. However, following best practices can help improve the results of projects. For example, some practices enable multi-person review before release, which can both help find otherwise hard-to-find technical vulnerabilities and help build trust and a desire for repeated interaction among developers from different companies. To earn a badge, all MUST and MUST NOT criteria must be met, all SHOULD criteria must be met OR be unmet with justification, and all SUGGESTED criteria must be met OR unmet (we want them considered at least). If you want to enter justification text as a generic comment, instead of being a rationale that the situation is acceptable, start the text block with '//' followed by a space. Feedback is welcome via the GitHub site as issues or pull requests There is also a mailing list for general discussion.

We gladly provide the information in several locales, however, if there is any conflict or inconsistency between the translations, the English version is the authoritative version.
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These are the Gold level criteria. You can also view the Passing or Silver level criteria.

Baseline Series: Baseline Level 1 Baseline Level 2 Baseline Level 3

        

 Basics 0/5 ●

  • General

    Note that other projects may use the same name.

    The security update management platform for SUSE and openSUSE Linux distributions

    Please use SPDX license expression format; examples include "Apache-2.0", "BSD-2-Clause", "BSD-3-Clause", "GPL-2.0+", "LGPL-3.0+", "MIT", and "(BSD-2-Clause OR Ruby)". Do not include single quotes or double quotes.
    If there is more than one language, list them as comma-separated values (spaces optional) and sort them from most to least used. If there is a long list, please list at least the first three most common ones. If there is no language (e.g., this is a documentation-only or test-only project), use the single character "-". Please use a conventional capitalization for each language, e.g., "JavaScript".
    The Common Platform Enumeration (CPE) is a structured naming scheme for information technology systems, software, and packages. It is used in a number of systems and databases when reporting vulnerabilities.

  • Prerequisites


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST achieve a silver level badge. [achieve_silver]

  • Project oversight


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have a "bus factor" of 2 or more. (URL required) [bus_factor]
    A "bus factor" (aka "truck factor") is the minimum number of project members that have to suddenly disappear from a project ("hit by a bus") before the project stalls due to lack of knowledgeable or competent personnel. The truck-factor tool can estimate this for projects on GitHub. For more information, see Assessing the Bus Factor of Git Repositories by Cosentino et al.

    The project has a bus factor of 1 — a single maintainer (StayPirate) with sole repository admin access, release credentials, and merge authority. No second person has the necessary permissions to create releases, merge PRs, or manage the repository infrastructure. This is the same underlying gap as the previous criterion.


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have at least two unassociated significant contributors. (URL required) [contributors_unassociated]
    Contributors are associated if they are paid to work by the same organization (as an employee or contractor) and the organization stands to benefit from the project's results. Financial grants do not count as being from the same organization if they pass through other organizations (e.g., science grants paid to different organizations from a common government or NGO source do not cause contributors to be associated). Someone is a significant contributor if they have made non-trivial contributions to the project in the past year. Examples of good indicators of a significant contributor are: written at least 1,000 lines of code, contributed 50 commits, or contributed at least 20 pages of documentation.

    Sentinel currently has a single primary contributor/maintainer. There are no two unassociated significant contributors to the project. This is consistent with the "Unmet" bus factor criterion noted earlier — both reflect the single-maintainer reality of the project's current stage.


  • Other


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST include a license statement in each source file. This MAY be done by including the following inside a comment near the beginning of each file: SPDX-License-Identifier: [SPDX license expression for project]. [license_per_file]
    This MAY also be done by including a statement in natural language identifying the license. The project MAY also include a stable URL pointing to the license text, or the full license text. Note that the criterion license_location requires the project license be in a standard location. See this SPDX tutorial for more information about SPDX license expressions. Note the relationship with copyright_per_file, whose content would typically precede the license information.

    Sentinel source files do not currently include SPDX license identifiers. The project has a top-level LICENSE file (MIT) but individual source files lack per-file license statements.


 Change Control 3/4 ●

  • Public version-controlled source repository


    Enough for a badge!

    The project's source repository MUST use a common distributed version control software (e.g., git or mercurial). [repo_distributed]
    Git is not specifically required and projects can use centralized version control software (such as subversion) with justification.

    Repository on GitHub, which uses git. git is distributed.


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST clearly identify small tasks that can be performed by new or casual contributors. (URL required) [small_tasks]
    This identification is typically done by marking selected issues in an issue tracker with one or more tags the project uses for the purpose, e.g., up-for-grabs, first-timers-only, "Small fix", microtask, or IdealFirstBug. These new tasks need not involve adding functionality; they can be improving documentation, adding test cases, or anything else that aids the project and helps the contributor understand more about the project.

    Sentinel does not currently use GitHub's "good first issue" label or any equivalent mechanism to identify tasks suitable for new or casual contributors. There are no labeled issues marking small, approachable tasks.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST require two-factor authentication (2FA) for developers for changing a central repository or accessing sensitive data (such as private vulnerability reports). This 2FA mechanism MAY use mechanisms without cryptographic mechanisms such as SMS, though that is not recommended. [require_2FA]

    GitHub requires 2FA as of March 2023. [osps_ac_01_01]


    Enough for a badge!

    The project's two-factor authentication (2FA) SHOULD use cryptographic mechanisms to prevent impersonation. Short Message Service (SMS) based 2FA, by itself, does NOT meet this criterion, since it is not encrypted. [secure_2FA]
    A 2FA mechanism that meets this criterion would be a Time-based One-Time Password (TOTP) application that automatically generates an authentication code that changes after a certain period of time. Note that GitHub supports TOTP.

    The project's GitHub organization/account uses GitHub's two-factor authentication, which supports cryptographic mechanisms — TOTP (time-based one-time passwords via authenticator apps), hardware security keys (WebAuthn/FIDO2), and GitHub Mobile push notifications. SMS-based 2FA is not relied upon as the sole mechanism. GitHub's 2FA enforcement has been mandatory for all contributors since 2023.


 Quality 6/7 ●

  • Coding standards


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST document its code review requirements, including how code review is conducted, what must be checked, and what is required to be acceptable. (URL required) [code_review_standards]
    See also two_person_review and contribution_requirements.

    Sentinel's code review requirements are comprehensively documented in CONTRIBUTING.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md), which references the detailed conventions. The full review process includes:

    • Automated reviewer agents: 15+ specialized reviewer agents (security, design, data-model, test, API convention, spec coherence, docs, etc.) are invoked per guardrail rules defined in AGENTS.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/AGENTS.md) — each guardrail specifies when to invoke which reviewer and what must be checked
    • What must be checked: mandatory testing for all changes (Guardrail 6), security review for security-sensitive code (Guardrail 10), data model review for schema changes (Guardrail 8), documentation completeness (Guardrail 9), spec coherence (Guardrail 15), API convention conformity (Guardrail 20), and more
    • Acceptance criteria: all CI checks must pass (ruff, mypy --strict, bandit, pip-audit, pytest), applicable reviewer agents must be invoked and findings addressed, PR description must include test evidence and manual verification notes
    • PR requirements: documented in docs/conventions.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/docs/conventions.md) (Pull Request Requirements) — title format, issue linkage, scope summary, reviewer results, verification evidence
    • Finding evaluation: Guardrail 26 documents how reviewer findings are evaluated — independent verification, discard criteria, proportionality, escalation procedure
    • CI enforcement: required status checks on master branch protection (7 checks), conversation resolution required before merge

    URL: https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST have at least 50% of all proposed modifications reviewed before release by a person other than the author, to determine if it is a worthwhile modification and free of known issues which would argue against its inclusion [two_person_review]

    Branch protection on master requires a pull request before merge, but the required approvals count is set to 0. This means a PR author can merge their own changes without any non-author human review. The project is currently single-maintainer, which makes enforcing non-author approval impractical (there is no second person to approve), but the criterion as stated is not satisfied by the current configuration. [osps_qa_07_01]


  • Working build system


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have a reproducible build. If no building occurs (e.g., scripting languages where the source code is used directly instead of being compiled), select "not applicable" (N/A). (URL required) [build_reproducible]
    A reproducible build means that multiple parties can independently redo the process of generating information from source files and get exactly the same bit-for-bit result. In some cases, this can be resolved by forcing some sort order. JavaScript developers may consider using npm shrinkwrap and webpack OccurrenceOrderPlugin. GCC and clang users may find the -frandom-seed option useful. The build environment (including the toolset) can often be defined for external parties by specifying the cryptographic hash of a specific container or virtual machine that they can use for rebuilding. The reproducible builds project has documentation on how to do this.

    Sentinel is a pure Python application — the source code is interpreted directly, not compiled into binary artifacts. There is no compilation step that would produce build output requiring bit-for-bit reproducibility. The Docker image build installs Python packages from a lockfile (uv.lock) but the application itself has no build/compilation phase.


  • Automated test suite


    Enough for a badge!

    A test suite MUST be invocable in a standard way for that language. (URL required) [test_invocation]
    For example, "make check", "mvn test", or "rake test" (Ruby).

    Sentinel's test suite is invocable using pytest, the standard Python testing framework:

    • Standard invocation: cd backend && uv run pytest — the conventional command documented in the project
    • Configuration: test settings are defined in backend/pyproject.toml (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/backend/pyproject.toml) under [tool.pytest.ini_options], following the standard pytest configuration convention
    • CI invocation: the CI pipeline (.github/workflows/ci.yml) invokes the same uv run pytest command with coverage flags
    • Markers: tests use standard pytest markers (@pytest.mark.unit, @pytest.mark.integration, @pytest.mark.e2e) for selective execution

    URL: https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/backend/pyproject.tomlard invocation is required.


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST implement continuous integration, where new or changed code is frequently integrated into a central code repository and automated tests are run on the result. (URL required) [test_continuous_integration]
    In most cases this means that each developer who works full-time on the project integrates at least daily.

    Sentinel implements continuous integration via GitHub Actions. Every push and pull request to master triggers the CI pipeline, which runs the full automated test and analysis suite:

    • Linting: ruff check . + ruff format --check .
    • Static type checking: mypy --strict
    • Security analysis: bandit (SAST) + pip-audit (SCA)
    • Shell analysis: shellcheck + shfmt -d + actionlint
    • Automated tests: uv run pytest (850+ tests with coverage)
    • Container scanning: Trivy image scan
    • PR title validation: Conventional Commits format enforcement
    • PR metadata validation: issue linkage requirement

    Branch protection on master requires 7 status checks to pass before merge. All changes arrive via pull request with squash merge — no direct pushes to master.

    URL: https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/.github/workflows/ci.yml


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have FLOSS automated test suite(s) that provide at least 90% statement coverage if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can measure this criterion in the selected language. [test_statement_coverage90]

    Sentinel achieves 99% statement coverage (98.99% measured precisely), well above the 90% threshold. Coverage is measured by pytest-cov (a FLOSS tool) and enforced in CI with a minimum threshold of 85%. Results are uploaded to Codecov on every CI run. The latest successful CI run shows TOTAL: 3113 statements, 27 missed, 568 branches, 10 missed — 99% coverage.

    URL: https://app.codecov.io/github/staypirate/sentinel


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have FLOSS automated test suite(s) that provide at least 80% branch coverage if there is at least one FLOSS tool that can measure this criterion in the selected language. [test_branch_coverage80]

    From the same CI run, Sentinel's test suite achieves high branch coverage as well. The coverage report shows 568 branches, 10 missed — which is 98% branch coverage, well above the 80% threshold. Branch coverage is measured by pytest-cov (a FLOSS tool) using the --cov-branch flag, and results are uploaded to Codecov on every CI run.


 Security 5/5 ●

  • Use basic good cryptographic practices

    Note that some software does not need to use cryptographic mechanisms. If your project produces software that (1) includes, activates, or enables encryption functionality, and (2) might be released from the United States (US) to outside the US or to a non-US-citizen, you may be legally required to take a few extra steps. Typically this just involves sending an email. For more information, see the encryption section of Understanding Open Source Technology & US Export Controls.

    Enough for a badge!

    The software produced by the project MUST support secure protocols for all of its network communications, such as SSHv2 or later, TLS1.2 or later (HTTPS), IPsec, SFTP, and SNMPv3. Insecure protocols such as FTP, HTTP, telnet, SSLv3 or earlier, and SSHv1 MUST be disabled by default, and only enabled if the user specifically configures it. If the software produced by the project does not support network communications, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_used_network]

    Sentinel supports secure protocols for all network communications and does not enable insecure protocols by default:

    • API server: serves over HTTPS; TLS configuration is handled at the deployment layer (reverse proxy / load balancer)
    • External service integrations: all HTTP clients (IBS, SMELT, AIMAAS, NVD, MITRE, Bugzilla, etc.) use HTTPS exclusively. The networking infrastructure (docs/features/platform/networking.md) configures TLS with certificate verification enabled by default
    • Database: connects to PostgreSQL via asyncpg, which supports TLS connections (sslmode parameter in DATABASE_URL)
    • Redis: connects via REDIS_URL, which supports rediss:// (TLS) scheme
    • RabbitMQ: connects via IBS_RABBITMQ_URL, which supports amqps:// (TLS) scheme
    • Git transport: git-based fetchers clone via HTTPS
    • No insecure defaults: no HTTP, FTP, telnet, or unencrypted protocols are used in application code. Plain HTTP is only accepted for local development (CORS_ORIGINS may include http://localhost:*)

    See docs/features/platform/networking.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/docs/features/platform/networking.md) and docs/data-sources.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/docs/data-sources.md) for the full external service catalog and protocol details.


    Enough for a badge!

    The software produced by the project MUST, if it supports or uses TLS, support at least TLS version 1.2. Note that the predecessor of TLS was called SSL. If the software does not use TLS, select "not applicable" (N/A). [crypto_tls12]

    Sentinel's TLS configuration supports TLS 1.2 and later:

    • Python runtime: Python 3.13's ssl module uses OpenSSL's default minimum protocol version, which is TLS 1.2 on all modern distributions (TLS 1.0 and 1.1 were deprecated in OpenSSL 1.1.1 and disabled by default in OpenSSL 3.x)
    • HTTP clients: the httpx library (used for all external service integrations) uses Python's ssl module, which enforces TLS 1.2+ by default
    • Database: asyncpg TLS connections negotiate TLS 1.2+ via the system OpenSSL
    • Redis/RabbitMQ: TLS connections via rediss:// and amqps:// schemes use Python's ssl module, defaulting to TLS 1.2+
    • Custom TLS context: the networking infrastructure (docs/features/platform/networking.md) supports configurable TLS contexts with certificate verification enabled by default, using the system trust store

    TLS versions prior to 1.2 (SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, TLS 1.0, TLS 1.1) are disabled by the underlying OpenSSL library in the Python 3.13 base image (python:3.13-slim).


  • Secured delivery against man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks


    Enough for a badge!

    The project website, repository (if accessible via the web), and download site (if separate) MUST include key hardening headers with nonpermissive values. (URL required) [hardened_site]
    Note that GitHub and GitLab are known to meet this. Sites such as https://securityheaders.com/ can quickly check this. The key hardening headers are: Content Security Policy (CSP), HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), X-Content-Type-Options (as "nosniff"), and X-Frame-Options. Fully static web sites with no ability to log in via the web pages could omit some hardening headers with less risk, but there's no reliable way to detect such sites, so we require these headers even if they are fully static sites.

    Sentinel's repository and website are hosted on GitHub, which serves all pages with hardening headers including:

    • Content-Security-Policy: restrictive policy limiting script and resource sources
    • X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
    • X-Frame-Options: DENY
    • Strict-Transport-Security: HSTS with long max-age, includeSubDomains, and preload
    • X-XSS-Protection: 0 (modern approach — CSP replaces this deprecated header)
    • Referrer-Policy: restrictive policy

    These are enforced by GitHub's infrastructure for all repositories and GitHub Pages sites. The project does not operate a separate website or download site outside of GitHub.

    URL: https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel


  • Other security issues


    Enough for a badge!

    The project MUST have performed a security review within the last 5 years. This review MUST consider the security requirements and security boundary. [security_review]
    This MAY be done by the project members and/or an independent evaluation. This evaluation MAY be supported by static and dynamic analysis tools, but there also must be human review to identify problems (particularly in design) that tools cannot detect.

    The project maintains an extensive docs/reviews/ directory with security review findings for every major component — over 50 review documents covering authentication, RBAC, networking, API specification, fetcher infrastructure, and all integration points. Each review includes findings from a dedicated @security-reviewer agent (among others), threat model assessments (e.g., brute-force resistance in local-authentication, trusted-upstream assumptions in networking, pre-disclosure data exposure in RBAC), and explicit risk acceptance decisions with rationale. The CI pipeline also runs bandit (static security analysis) and pip-audit (dependency vulnerability scanning) on every merge. Security-sensitive areas are subject to mandatory review per Guardrail 10. [osps_sa_03_01]


    Enough for a badge!

    Hardening mechanisms MUST be used in the software produced by the project so that software defects are less likely to result in security vulnerabilities. (URL required) [hardening]
    Hardening mechanisms may include HTTP headers like Content Security Policy (CSP), compiler flags to mitigate attacks (such as -fstack-protector), or compiler flags to eliminate undefined behavior. For our purposes least privilege is not considered a hardening mechanism (least privilege is important, but separate).

    Sentinel employs multiple hardening mechanisms to reduce the likelihood that software defects result in security vulnerabilities:

    • Memory-safe language: Python is memory-safe by design — no buffer overflows, use-after-free, or memory corruption
    • Strict static type checking: mypy --strict is a mandatory CI gate, catching type errors, unhandled None values, and forgotten await calls before production
    • SQL injection prevention: all database queries use SQLAlchemy's parameterized query API — no raw SQL string concatenation
    • Input validation at boundaries: Pydantic schemas reject malformed input before business logic; database CHECK constraints provide defense-in-depth
    • Secret masking: SecretStr type prevents accidental credential exposure in tracebacks, logs, and repr output
    • SAST: bandit detects common Python security anti-patterns (hardcoded passwords, eval, insecure deserialization) in CI
    • SCA: pip-audit blocks dependencies with known vulnerabilities pre-merge
    • Container scanning: Trivy scans the Docker image for OS and library vulnerabilities
    • Least-privilege CI: workflows default to permissions: read-all; jobs escalate only specific permissions needed
    • Secret scanning: GitHub Secret Scanning with Push Protection prevents accidental credential commits
    • Pessimistic locking: centralized mutation modules use SELECT ... FOR UPDATE to prevent race conditions
    • No custom cryptography: all crypto delegates to vetted FLOSS libraries (bcrypt, PyJWT, OpenSSL)

    These mechanisms are documented across docs/conventions.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/docs/conventions.md), docs/architecture.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/docs/architecture.md), and docs/deployment.md (https://github.com/StayPirate/sentinel/blob/master/docs/deployment.md) (CI Pipeline).


 Analysis 1/2 ●

  • Dynamic code analysis


    Not enough for a badge.

    The project MUST apply at least one dynamic analysis tool to any proposed major production release of the software produced by the project before its release. [dynamic_analysis]
    A dynamic analysis tool examines the software by executing it with specific inputs. For example, the project MAY use a fuzzing tool (e.g., American Fuzzy Lop) or a web application scanner (e.g., OWASP ZAP or w3af). In some cases the OSS-Fuzz project may be willing to apply fuzz testing to your project. For purposes of this criterion the dynamic analysis tool needs to vary the inputs in some way to look for various kinds of problems or be an automated test suite with at least 80% branch coverage. The Wikipedia page on dynamic analysis and the OWASP page on fuzzing identify some dynamic analysis tools. The analysis tool(s) MAY be focused on looking for security vulnerabilities, but this is not required.

    Sentinel does not currently apply dynamic analysis tools (e.g., fuzzing, property-based testing with Hypothesis, runtime sanitizers, or similar) to production releases. The project relies on static analysis (mypy --strict, bandit, ruff), dependency auditing (pip-audit), container scanning (Trivy), and an extensive automated test suite (850+ tests), but no dynamic analysis tool is part of the CI pipeline or release process. This is consistent with the "Unmet" status on the runtime assertions criterion above.


    Barely enough for a badge.

    The project SHOULD include many run-time assertions in the software it produces and check those assertions during dynamic analysis. [dynamic_analysis_enable_assertions]
    This criterion does not suggest enabling assertions during production; that is entirely up to the project and its users to decide. This criterion's focus is instead to improve fault detection during dynamic analysis before deployment. Enabling assertions in production use is completely different from enabling assertions during dynamic analysis (such as testing). In some cases enabling assertions in production use is extremely unwise (especially in high-integrity components). There are many arguments against enabling assertions in production, e.g., libraries should not crash callers, their presence may cause rejection by app stores, and/or activating an assertion in production may expose private data such as private keys. Beware that in many Linux distributions NDEBUG is not defined, so C/C++ assert() will by default be enabled for production in those environments. It may be important to use a different assertion mechanism or defining NDEBUG for production in those environments.

    Sentinel does not currently make significant use of run-time assertions (assert statements) in its production code. Python's assert statements are stripped when running with optimization flags (-O), and the project relies instead on explicit validation (Pydantic schemas, service-layer guard clauses raising typed exceptions, database CHECK constraints) rather than assert-based runtime assertions. No dynamic analysis tool (e.g., fuzzing, property-based testing with Hypothesis) is currently integrated into the test suite or CI pipeline.



You can use tools and AI systems to propose changes via a simple URL, such as https://www.bestpractices.dev/en/projects/14063/choose/edit?osps_ac_01_01_status=Met&osps_ac_01_01_justification=GitHub+enforced. See our automation proposals system for how to do that. This data is available under the Community Data License Agreement – Permissive, Version 2.0 (CDLA-Permissive-2.0). This means that a Data Recipient may share the Data, with or without modifications, so long as the Data Recipient makes available the text of this agreement with the shared Data. Please credit Gianluca Gabrielli and the OpenSSF Best Practices badge contributors.

Project badge entry owned by: Gianluca Gabrielli.
Entry created on 2026-08-13 13:55:49 UTC, last updated on 2026-08-14 06:09:03 UTC. Last achieved passing badge on 2026-08-13 16:48:08 UTC.