# microsoft/ApplicationInspector

A source code analyzer built for surfacing features of interest and other characteristics to answer the question 'What's in the code?' quickly using static analysis with a json based rules engine. Ideal for scanning components before use or detecting feature level changes.

Repository: https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInspector
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/applicationinspector
Language: C#
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: static-analysis, software-characterization, application-inspector, detection, security-tools, security-scanner
Last push: 2026-08-26T21:17:13+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2522, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 7, "gap_med": 41.0, "n_releases_24m": 13}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4396, forks 366 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:48.169125+00:00)

## What it is
Microsoft Application Inspector is a source code characterization tool that uses a JSON-based rules engine with 400+ regex patterns to identify features of first- or third-party code, such as cryptography use, file operations, cloud APIs, and frameworks. It supports many languages and produces HTML, JSON, or text reports to quickly answer 'what's in the code?'.

## Use cases
- analyze what features an open-source component contains before adopting it
- detect feature-level changes between versions of a codebase
- scan third-party code for security-relevant characteristics like encryption or shell execution
- identify which frameworks and APIs a mixed-language project uses
- audit untrusted source code without relying on documentation

## When to choose
- you need fast feature-level characterization of source code across many languages
- you want to vet third-party or OSS components before use
- you need to diff feature sets between code versions

## When to avoid
- you need deep bug or vulnerability detection rather than feature identification
- you need runtime or dynamic analysis
- you need full SAST with taint tracking

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: active
- function: security, parser, developer-tools
- domain: security, developer-tools
- platform: cross-platform, cli, windows, dotnet
- tags: source-code-characterization, static-analysis, rules-engine, feature-detection, software-composition-analysis, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- microsoft/ApplicationInspector (main) score 95

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:48.169125+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:21:10.801760+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/microsoft/ApplicationInspector (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:48.169125+00:00, sha 3e0b5d9a206b)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.