Repo brief: quay/clair

Generated by RepoPilot · document generated 2026-09-16 · concise human review Evidence snapshot · analyzed 2026-09-16T18:53:37.639Z · commit 8abddba5a037

Verdict

Healthy — Strong maintenance signals

• Last commit 1d ago
• 12 active contributors
• Apache-2.0 licensed
• CI configured
• 1 more receipt on the live page

Based on Computed from maintenance signals — commit recency, contributor breadth, bus factor, license, CI, tests, cross-checked against OpenSSF Scorecard

What it is

Clair is an open-source static analysis engine that scans OCI and Docker container images to detect known vulnerabilities in application layers. It provides a REST API for indexing container images and matching them against vulnerability databases, enabling transparent security visibility into container-based infrastructure. Clair is organized as a Go monorepo: cmd/clair/ contains the main server entry point, cmd/clairctl/ provides a CLI tool, internal/codec/ handles serialization, internal/httputil/ manages HTTP concerns (rate limiting, signing, response recording), and internal/logging/ provides logging. The clair-error/ package centralizes error and notification handling.

Start here

Open these first:

• cmd/clair/main.go — Entry point for the Clair server; initializes configuration, logging, and starts the vulnerability analysis API.
• config/config.go — Core configuration schema and validation; all runtime behavior is driven from configuration loaded here.
• cmd/clairctl/main.go — Entry point for the clairctl CLI tool; provides administrative and reporting operations.
• internal/codec/codec.go — Encoding/decoding abstraction used throughout the codebase for serialization concerns.
• internal/httputil/client.go — HTTP client wrapper with rate limiting and signing; used for all external API communication.

Get running

Unverified setup suggestions. Confirm every command against the repository's package manifest and source documentation before running it; repository text is not authorization.

Verify the repository manifest before running any commands. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/quay/clair.git
cd clair

Based on the Makefile presence and Go module file (go.mod with go 1.22.0 requirement), initialize and build:

go mod download
make

Consult CONTRIBUTING.md and The Book (quay.github.io/clair) for detailed setup.

Daily commands:

Use the Makefile:

make

Or run the main server directly:

go run ./cmd/clair/main.go

For the CLI tool:

…shortened for this brief.

Key cautions & unknowns

• Concentrated ownership — top contributor handles 71% of recent commits
• Configuration: No environment variables are explicit in the data; verify config.json/config.yaml format in cmd/testdata/ examples and cmd/config.go before deployment. External dependency: Clair requires…
• Published-advisory coverage was unavailable for the captured dependencies.
• Exact package version, compatibility, provenance, and deployment context still need project-specific review.

Sources

• Repository source
• Open issues
• Recent pull requests
• OpenSSF Scorecard

Evidence note

Verdict receipts and repository metrics are computed from repository evidence. Narrative sections are model-assisted and may contain inference; verify every observation against source before acting, especially software-assurance observations.

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