ebpf-go is a pure-Go library to read, modify and load eBPF programs and attach them to various hooks in the Linux kernel.
This report summarizes scanner evidence for cilium/ebpf, a Go project with 8,024 GitHub stars. SynthScan examined 84,513 lines of code across 520 source files, recording 134 pattern matches distributed across 4 syntactic categories. The legacy adjusted pattern signal is 1.6 (Low pattern signal); it is not an authorship estimate.
Use the findings to ask whether maintainers can explain intent, verify dependencies, simplify unnecessary scaffolding, and focus review effort. Risk Payload v1 adds ownership, supply-chain, over-engineering, and review-effort vectors when available. These are prompts for human verification, not probabilities, security findings, or measured maintenance costs.
Use each vector to guide manual verification of the underlying findings.
Payload schema: 1.0.0 · Engine: 2.0.0 · Scoring: heuristic-density-v1 · Scan date: 2026-10-31.
Can maintainers explain intent, assumptions, and trade-offs? 134 finding(s).
Are imports declared and package/API names verified? 0 finding(s).
Are wrappers, guards, and repeated structures necessary? 1 finding(s).
Which changes need focused human review? 134 finding(s).
This chart tracks the legacy adjusted pattern score across scan runs. Changes can reflect source changes, scan coverage, or detector/scoring versions; they do not measure AI adoption or prove that a team refactored code. Compare runs only when their scoring versions are compatible. The dashed line tracks the raw pattern-hit count.
Groups findings by configured severity weight. Severity is not a confidence estimate, security rating, or proof that a package is missing. Verify imports against the project's manifests and inspect each finding in its local design context.
This horizontal bar chart shows where configured pattern scores accumulate across directories. Treat the bars as locations to inspect, not as evidence of authorship or code quality. Use the file-level findings to decide whether a directory needs a focused ownership, dependency, complexity, or review check.
The scanner identified 134 distinct pattern matches across 4 syntactic categories. Each entry below represents a discrete location in the source code where the engine recorded a detector match to inspect in context. Expand any category row to inspect the individual file paths, line numbers, code snippets, and the lexical context (CODE, COMMENT, or STRING) in which each match was detected.
Reading the findings table: The Severity column indicates the configured finding weight (CRITICAL / HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW). The Context column identifies whether the match occurred inside executable code, an inline comment, or a string literal — legacy comment-context matches receive a ×1.5 score weight. The ⚡ bolt icon marks clustered matches: three or more patterns within a 10-line window, each receiving an additional ×1.5 density multiplier under the legacy scoring model.
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOW | memory.go | 21 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | prog.go | 61 | const maxVerifierLogSize = math.MaxUint32 >> 2 | COMMENT |
| LOW | prog.go | 81 | // Unless LogDisabled is set, setting this to a non-zero value will enable the verifier | COMMENT |
| LOW | prog.go | 121 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | prog.go | 141 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | prog.go | 221 | return true | COMMENT |
| LOW | prog.go | 241 | // Diagnostics were introduced in Linux 7.3 and include human-readable advice | COMMENT |
| LOW | prog.go | 261 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | prog.go | 861 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | prog.go | 881 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | prog.go | 1061 | if errors.Is(err, unix.EINTR) { | COMMENT |
| LOW | types.go | 21 | // ProgramArray - A program array map is a special kind of array map whose map | COMMENT |
| LOW | types.go | 41 | // GetStackID | COMMENT |
| LOW | types.go | 81 | // Queue - FIFO storage for BPF programs. | COMMENT |
| LOW | example_sock_extract_dist_test.go | 1 | //go:build linux | COMMENT |
| LOW | example_sock_extract_dist_test.go | 21 | // this software without specific prior written permission. | COMMENT |
| LOW | collection.go | 21 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | collection.go | 101 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | collection.go | 161 | // if this sounds useful. | COMMENT |
| LOW | collection.go | 821 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | collection.go | 841 | // struct { | COMMENT |
| LOW | doc.go | 1 | // Package ebpf is a toolkit for working with eBPF programs. | COMMENT |
| LOW | doc.go | 21 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | memory_unsafe.go | 21 | // In Go, the programmer should not have to worry about freeing memory. Since | COMMENT |
| LOW | memory_unsafe.go | 61 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | memory_unsafe.go | 121 | // Align the pointer to a page boundary within the allocation. This may alias | COMMENT |
| LOW | memory_unsafe.go | 141 | // new and only reference to the backing array. | COMMENT |
| LOW | memory_unsafe.go | 181 | // unmap returns a function that takes a pointer to a memory-mapped region on | COMMENT |
| LOW | memory_unsafe.go | 321 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | struct_ops.go | 61 | if !ok { | COMMENT |
| LOW | map.go | 361 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | map.go | 1221 | err := m.lookup(randKey, valuePtr, 0) | COMMENT |
| LOW | map.go | 1241 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | map.go | 1801 | // also abort with an error, see IsIterationAborted. | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 21 | COMMENT | |
| LOW | info.go | 181 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 201 | // Available from 4.10. | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 221 | // Will contain mostly zero values if the collection of statistics is not | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 641 | bytes.NewReader(pi.lineInfos), | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 661 | // If available, the instructions will be annotated with metadata from the | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 761 | return int(pi.numInsns), nil | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 781 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 821 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | info.go | 841 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | cmd/bpf2go/doc.go | 1 | //go:build !windows | COMMENT |
| LOW | cmd/bpf2go/gen/target.go | 101 | // GoArches. | COMMENT |
| LOW | testdata/common.h | 21 | #define __type(name, val) typeof(val) *name | COMMENT |
| LOW | asm/opcode.go | 61 | func (cls Class) IsJump() bool { | COMMENT |
| LOW | asm/opcode.go | 81 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | asm/alu.go | 1 | package asm | COMMENT |
| LOW | asm/alu.go | 41 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | asm/instruction_test.go | 161 | // ; abc = 42 | COMMENT |
| LOW | features/prog.go | 221 | }) | COMMENT |
| LOW | features/doc.go | 1 | // Package features allows probing for BPF features available to the calling process. | COMMENT |
| LOW | internal/prog.go | 1 | package internal | COMMENT |
| LOW | internal/feature.go | 61 | done bool | COMMENT |
| LOW | internal/errors.go | 121 | } | COMMENT |
| LOW | internal/errors.go | 141 | // | COMMENT |
| LOW | internal/sysenc/marshal.go | 141 | // code so that the panic isn't reachable. | COMMENT |
| LOW | internal/sysenc/buffer.go | 21 | } | COMMENT |
| 71 more matches not shown… | ||||
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MEDIUM | docs/ebpf/guides/getting-started.md | 118 | ## Compile eBPF C and generate scaffolding using bpf2go | COMMENT |
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOW | scripts/windows/setup.sh | 9 | # Check if ISO path is provided | COMMENT |
| Severity | File | Line | Snippet | Context |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LOW | docs/macros.py | 147 | CODE |