# k3s-io/containerd — health index 56/100 (Moderate)

> Inspection of the public repository k3s-io/containerd by inspect.software. It holds a health index of 56 out of 100, placing it in the Moderate band. The index is a signal derived from publicly visible practice, not a warranty, a security audit, or an endorsement, and it is independent of payment.

- Repository: https://github.com/k3s-io/containerd
- Report page: https://inspect.software/software/k3s-io/containerd
- Full JSON report: https://inspect.software/api/repositories/k3s-io/containerd/report
- Badge: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/inspect-software/badges/main/v1/k/k3s-io/containerd.svg
- Inspected: 2026-09-19
- Methodology: metrics 2.10.0, report schema 0.34.0 (https://inspect.software/methodology.md)

## Category summary

| Category | Weight | Index | Band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vitality | 21% | 47/100 | Weak |
| Community & Adoption | 17% | 28/100 | At Risk |
| Sustainability & Governance | 23% | 57/100 | Moderate |
| Engineering Quality | 19% | 69/100 | Good |
| Security | 16% | 64/100 | Moderate |
| AI Readiness | 4% | 72/100 | Good |

The weighted overall 54 is calibrated to 56 on the published index scale (record calibration 2026-08-02).

## Repository facts

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Description | A daemon to control runC |
| Classification | network-service, cli |
| Homepage | https://containerd.tools/ |
| Primary language | Go |
| License | Apache-2.0 |
| Stars | 15 |
| Forks | 31 |
| Created | 2016-04-26 |
| Last push | 2026-08-26 |
| Latest release | v2.1.5 |
| Commits (last year) | 0 |
| Bus factor | 5 |
| Fork | yes |

## Published packages

| Registry | Package | Latest | Monthly downloads |
|---|---|---|---|
| go | github.com/containerd/containerd/v2 | v2.4.0 | — |
| go | github.com/containerd/containerd/api | v1.12.0 | — |

## Vitality — 47/100 (Weak)

Is the project alive — is code being written and are releases shipping? Weight: 21% of the overall index.

### Development activity — 29/100 (At Risk)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Push recency | partial | 28.8 / 36 | last push 23 days ago |
| Commit cadence | not met | 0 / 36 | 0/52 weeks with commits |
| Commit volume | not met | 0 / 18 | 0 commits in the last year |
| OpenSSF Scorecard: Maintained | not met | 0 / 10 | 0 commit(s) and 0 issue activity found in the last 90 days -- score normalized to 0 |

### Release discipline — 73/100 (Good)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ships releases | met | 27 / 27 | 67 releases published |
| Release recency | partial | 16.2 / 36 | latest release 316 days ago |
| Release cadence | partial | 19.8 / 27 | a release every ~59.8 days |
| OpenSSF Scorecard: Signed-Releases | met | 10 / 10 | 5 out of the last 5 releases have a total of 5 signed artifacts. |

### Abandonment — 100/100 (Exceptional)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Project is still maintained | met | 100 / 100 | no human commit for 528 days, with nothing left unanswered; held at dormant by nothing open to answer, a release within the year |

## Community & Adoption — 28/100 (At Risk)

Does the project have users, downloads, attention, and a welcoming setup for contributors? Weight: 17% of the overall index.

### Popularity & adoption — 31/100 (At Risk)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars | partial | 18.6 / 60 | 15 stars |
| Forks | partial | 12.3 / 25 | 31 forks |
| Watchers | not met | 0 / 15 | 0 watchers |

### Community health — 25/100 (At Risk)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| README | not met | 0 / 22.5 | — |
| License | met | 22.5 / 22.5 | recognized license (Apache-2.0) |
| CONTRIBUTING guide | not met | 0 / 18 | — |
| Code of conduct | not met | 0 / 13.5 | — |
| Issue template | not met | 0 / 7.2 | — |
| PR template | not met | 0 / 6.3 | — |

## Sustainability & Governance — 57/100 (Moderate)

Will the project survive its people — bus factor, responsiveness, who backs it, and package upkeep? Weight: 23% of the overall index.

### Maintainer resilience (bus factor) — 89/100 (Excellent)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bus factor | partial | 45.9 / 54 | 5 contributor(s) cover half of all commits |
| Commit distribution | partial | 19.5 / 22.5 | top contributor authored 14% of commits |
| Contributor breadth | met | 13.5 / 13.5 | 99 contributors |
| OpenSSF Scorecard: Contributors | met | 10 / 10 | project has 74 contributing companies or organizations |

### Issue & PR responsiveness — 1/100 (Critical)

Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): Issue resolution, PR acceptance, Newcomer PR acceptance. Remaining weights renormalized.

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Issue resolution | excluded | 0 / 42 | no issues or no data |
| PR acceptance | excluded | 0 / 30 | no decided pull requests or no data |
| Newcomer PR acceptance | excluded | 0 / 13 | no first-time contributor's PR decided in 30d |
| OpenSSF Scorecard: Code-Review | not met | 0 / 15 | Found 0/30 approved changesets -- score normalized to 0 |

### Ownership & stewardship — 75/100 (Good)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership backing | met | 30 / 30 | organization-owned |
| Verified domain | not met | 0 / 20 | — |
| Owner reach | partial | 20.5 / 25 | 713 followers of k3s-io |
| Track record | partial | 24.2 / 25 | 47 public repos, account ~7 yr old |

## Engineering Quality — 69/100 (Good)

Are baseline engineering and documentation practices in place? Weight: 19% of the overall index.

### Engineering practices — 88/100 (Excellent)

Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): OpenSSF Scorecard: CI-Tests. Remaining weights renormalized.

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| CI workflows | met | 24 / 24 | 15 workflow(s) |
| Tests present | met | 24 / 24 | — |
| Linter config | met | 16 / 16 | .flake8, .golangci.yaml, .golangci.yml |
| Pre-commit hooks | not met | 0 / 9.6 | — |
| .editorconfig | met | 6.4 / 6.4 | — |
| OpenSSF Scorecard: CI-Tests | excluded | 0 / 20 | no pull request found |

### Documentation — 40/100 (Weak)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| README | not met | 0 / 30 | — |
| Documentation directory | met | 25 / 25 | — |
| Documentation / homepage site | met | 15 / 15 | https://containerd.tools/ |
| Repository description | not met | 0 / 10 | — |
| Topics | not met | 0 / 10 | — |
| Wiki | not met | 0 / 10 | — |

## Security — 64/100 (Moderate)

Are visible security and supply-chain practices strong, with no malicious dependency and no unresolved high-risk jurisdiction exposure? Weight: 16% of the overall index.

### Security posture — 64/100 (Moderate)

Excluded from scoring (no data or not applicable): Branch-Protection, CI-Tests, Packaging. Remaining weights renormalized.

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binary-Artifacts | met | 7.5 / 7.5 | no binaries found in the repo |
| Branch-Protection | excluded | 0 / 7.5 | internal error: error during branchesHandler.setup: internal error: some github tokens can't read classic branch protection rules: https://github.com/ossf/scorecard-action/blob/main/docs/authentication/fine-grained-auth-token.md |
| CI-Tests | excluded | 0 / 2.5 | no pull request found |
| CII-Best-Practices | not met | 0 / 2.5 | no effort to earn an OpenSSF best practices badge detected |
| Code-Review | not met | 0 / 7.5 | Found 0/30 approved changesets -- score normalized to 0 |
| Contributors | met | 2.5 / 2.5 | project has 74 contributing companies or organizations |
| Dangerous-Workflow | met | 10 / 10 | no dangerous workflow patterns detected |
| Dependency-Update-Tool | met | 7.5 / 7.5 | update tool detected |
| Fuzzing | met | 5 / 5 | project is fuzzed |
| License | met | 2.5 / 2.5 | license file detected |
| Maintained | not met | 0 / 7.5 | 0 commit(s) and 0 issue activity found in the last 90 days -- score normalized to 0 |
| Packaging | excluded | 0 / 5 | packaging workflow not detected |
| Pinned-Dependencies | partial | 3 / 5 | dependency not pinned by hash detected -- score normalized to 6 |
| SAST | met | 5 / 5 | SAST tool detected: CodeQL |
| Security-Policy | not met | 0 / 5 | security policy file not detected |
| Signed-Releases | met | 7.5 / 7.5 | 5 out of the last 5 releases have a total of 5 signed artifacts. |
| Token-Permissions | met | 7.5 / 7.5 | GitHub workflow tokens follow principle of least privilege |
| Vulnerabilities | not met | 0 / 7.5 | 51 existing vulnerabilities detected |

### High-Risk Jurisdiction Exposure — 100/100 (Exceptional)

Only high-confidence self-published location evidence affects this multiplier. Ambiguous matches are review-only; country evidence is not proof of nationality, citizenship, legal registration, malicious intent, or sanctions status.

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Policy exposure multiplier | met | 100 / 100 | no confirmed policy-scope location match |

## AI Readiness — 72/100 (Good)

How well is the repo equipped to be developed and maintained with AI coding agents? Carries a deliberately small weight: agent tooling is a real maintenance signal, but its absence must never gate the top of the scale (calibration saturates at raw 91, so 100/100 remains reachable with AI Readiness at zero).

### Agent context & guidance — 37/100 (Weak)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Agent instructions | not met | 0 / 45 | no CLAUDE.md / AGENTS.md / editor rules |
| Machine-readable docs (llms.txt) | not met | 0 / 15 | — |
| Legible commit history | partial | 36.8 / 40 | 58 of 84 human commits state their intent (structured subject or explanatory body) |

### Verify loop (build / test / typecheck) — 86/100 (Excellent)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-command bootstrap | met | 18 / 18 | Makefile, integration/images/volume-copy-up/Makefile, integration/images/volume-ownership/Makefile, vendor/github.com/Microsoft/hcsshim/Makefile, vendor/github.com/checkpoint-restore/go-criu/v7/Makefile, vendor/github.com/cilium/ebpf/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/btrfs/v2/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/cgroups/v3/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/continuity/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/fifo/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/go-cni/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/imgcrypt/v2/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/nri/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/otelttrpc/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containerd/ttrpc/Makefile, vendor/github.com/containers/ocicrypt/Makefile, vendor/github.com/distribution/reference/Makefile, vendor/github.com/emicklei/go-restful/v3/Makefile, vendor/github.com/felixge/httpsnoop/Makefile, vendor/github.com/gogo/protobuf/gogoproto/Makefile, vendor/github.com/gogo/protobuf/proto/Makefile, vendor/github.com/gogo/protobuf/protoc-gen-gogo/descriptor/Makefile, vendor/github.com/mistifyio/go-zfs/v3/Makefile, vendor/github.com/munnerz/goautoneg/Makefile, vendor/github.com/pkg/errors/Makefile, vendor/github.com/prometheus/procfs/Makefile, vendor/github.com/smallstep/pkcs7/Makefile, vendor/github.com/stefanberger/go-pkcs11uri/Makefile, vendor/github.com/urfave/cli/v2/Makefile, vendor/github.com/vishvananda/netlink/Makefile, vendor/go.etcd.io/bbolt/Makefile, vendor/go.opencensus.io/Makefile, vendor/go.opentelemetry.io/otel/Makefile, vendor/google.golang.org/grpc/Makefile, vendor/sigs.k8s.io/json/Makefile |
| Automated tests | met | 22 / 22 | — |
| Lint / format config | met | 11 / 11 | .flake8, .golangci.yaml, .golangci.yml |
| Static type checking | met | 11 / 11 | Go (statically typed) |
| Reproducible environment | met | 10 / 10 | devcontainer, Dockerfile, Nix, lockfile |
| Demonstrated agent practice | not met | 0 / 10 | no agent-authored commits among the last 100 |
| Automated maintenance | met | 8 / 8 | 16 of the last 100 commits are automated dependency updates |
| OpenSSF Scorecard: Pinned-Dependencies | partial | 6 / 10 | dependency not pinned by hash detected -- score normalized to 6 |

### Code legibility for models — 100/100 (Exceptional)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type-checkable code | met | 45 / 45 | Go (statically typed) |
| Manageable file sizes | partial | 54.7 / 55 | 7/1202 source files over 60KB |

### Machine-readable interfaces — 80/100 (Excellent)

| Criterion | Status | Points | Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| API schema (OpenAPI/GraphQL/proto) | met | 40 / 40 | api/events/container.proto, api/events/content.proto, api/events/image.proto, api/events/namespace.proto, api/events/sandbox.proto, api/events/snapshot.proto, api/events/task.proto, api/runtime/sandbox/v1/sandbox.proto, api/runtime/task/v2/shim.proto, api/runtime/task/v3/shim.proto, api/services/containers/v1/containers.proto, api/services/content/v1/content.proto, api/services/diff/v1/diff.proto, api/services/events/v1/events.proto, api/services/images/v1/images.proto, api/services/introspection/v1/introspection.proto, api/services/leases/v1/leases.proto, api/services/namespaces/v1/namespace.proto, api/services/sandbox/v1/sandbox.proto, api/services/snapshots/v1/snapshots.proto, api/services/streaming/v1/streaming.proto, api/services/tasks/v1/tasks.proto, api/services/transfer/v1/transfer.proto, api/services/ttrpc/events/v1/events.proto, api/services/version/v1/version.proto, api/types/descriptor.proto, api/types/event.proto, api/types/fieldpath.proto, api/types/introspection.proto, api/types/metrics.proto, api/types/mount.proto, api/types/platform.proto, api/types/runc/options/oci.proto, api/types/runtimeoptions/v1/api.proto, api/types/sandbox.proto, api/types/task/task.proto, api/types/transfer/imagestore.proto, api/types/transfer/importexport.proto, api/types/transfer/progress.proto, api/types/transfer/registry.proto, api/types/transfer/streaming.proto, vendor/github.com/Microsoft/hcsshim/cmd/containerd-shim-runhcs-v1/options/runhcs.proto, vendor/github.com/Microsoft/hcsshim/cmd/containerd-shim-runhcs-v1/stats/stats.proto, vendor/github.com/checkpoint-restore/go-criu/v7/rpc/rpc.proto, vendor/github.com/checkpoint-restore/go-criu/v7/stats/stats.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/cgroups/v3/cgroup1/stats/metrics.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/cgroups/v3/cgroup2/stats/metrics.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/container.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/content.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/image.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/namespace.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/sandbox.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/snapshot.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/events/task.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/runtime/sandbox/v1/sandbox.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/runtime/task/v2/shim.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/runtime/task/v3/shim.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/containers/v1/containers.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/content/v1/content.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/diff/v1/diff.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/events/v1/events.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/images/v1/images.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/introspection/v1/introspection.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/leases/v1/leases.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/namespaces/v1/namespace.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/sandbox/v1/sandbox.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/snapshots/v1/snapshots.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/streaming/v1/streaming.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/tasks/v1/tasks.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/transfer/v1/transfer.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/ttrpc/events/v1/events.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/services/version/v1/version.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/descriptor.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/event.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/fieldpath.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/introspection.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/metrics.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/mount.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/platform.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/runc/options/oci.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/runtimeoptions/v1/api.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/sandbox.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/task/task.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/transfer/imagestore.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/transfer/importexport.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/transfer/progress.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/transfer/registry.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/containerd/api/types/transfer/streaming.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/continuity/proto/manifest.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/nri/pkg/api/api.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/otelttrpc/internal/test.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/ttrpc/request.proto, vendor/github.com/containerd/ttrpc/test.proto, vendor/github.com/containers/ocicrypt/utils/keyprovider/keyprovider.proto, vendor/github.com/gogo/protobuf/gogoproto/gogo.proto, vendor/k8s.io/api/core/v1/generated.proto, vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/api/resource/generated.proto, vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/apis/meta/v1/generated.proto, vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/generated.proto, vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/runtime/schema/generated.proto, vendor/k8s.io/apimachinery/pkg/util/intstr/generated.proto, vendor/k8s.io/cri-api/pkg/apis/runtime/v1/api.proto |
| MCP server | not met | 0 / 20 | — |
| Runnable examples | met | 40 / 40 | example |

## Collection warnings

- Star history unavailable: GitHub GraphQL error: Resource not accessible by personal access token
- Community profile unavailable
- go package 'github.com/containerd/containerd/v2' points at a different repository (https://github.com/containerd/containerd); excluded from ecosystem scoring
- go package 'github.com/containerd/containerd/api' points at a different repository (https://github.com/containerd/containerd); excluded from ecosystem scoring

## What this report is

inspect.software measures public repositories against a single published, versioned methodology and reports the result as a 1–100 health index. Findings are signals derived from what is visible in public repository data — they are not a security audit, a warranty, or an endorsement, and no result depends on payment.

- Methodology, formulas and weights: https://inspect.software/methodology.md
- What a result does and does not claim: https://inspect.software/wiki/signals-not-warranties.md
- Rating bands: https://inspect.software/wiki/scoring-bands.md
- Corrections: https://inspect.software/contact.md
- Index of all documents: https://inspect.software/llms.txt