perf(model): one Joern invocation per query kind, not one per region

JVM startup dominated a scan: a call per region per family put a ten-line
file at 275s over three regions, and would have put a thousand regions at
roughly fifty hours. The queries themselves are milliseconds once the CPG
is loaded, so the cost was almost entirely process starts.

scan_repository() is now collect -> batch -> arbitrate. The three .sc
scripts accept a `requests` JSON map and answer all of them in one run,
keeping the single-request form so the committed measurements stay
reproducible byte-for-byte. Arbiters are untouched: each is handed a
CpgResult whose `run` returns its own prefetched rows.

The batcher builds parameters by calling request_params() extracted from
taint.py, dominance.py and config_value.py rather than reconstructing
them. A second copy that drifts from the arbiter's is the exact shape of
the five family-assumption bugs the predecessor spec spent a session
finding; there is now one definition per family and the batcher borrows
it.

Regions are also deduplicated by (path, function), collapsing the
nameless entry-point rows that were producing `model:injection:?:10`.

Measured on the same ten-line file: 275s -> 106s, three duplicate
findings -> one `model:injection:ping:10`, rung unchanged at
model_entailed. Gates byte-identical.

Server mode is recorded as task 2.3, deliberately sequenced after the
repository measurement: whether the remaining ~100s floor is worth a
process model, a weakened subprocess seam and a Scala-evaluating HTTP
endpoint depends on a build-time-to-query-time ratio only 2.2 produces.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01T7XD7x5KonMdmGRkp63EQG
This commit is contained in:
Marius Ciepluch
2026-09-09 07:57:35 +02:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent e67f3ee2f0
commit c35426e186
13 changed files with 412 additions and 76 deletions
+25 -4
View File
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
- _Requirements: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5, 8.4_
- _Depends: 1.2_
- [ ] 1.4 Batch the queries — one Joern invocation per scan, not one per region and family
- [x] 1.4 Batch the queries — one Joern invocation per scan, not one per region and family
- **Why this is in group 1 rather than group 2.** Wiring 1.3 exposed that the cost model in the design was
half right. One CPG per scan was the right call, but every *query* is its own `joern --script` JVM launch
of roughly 30 seconds, and the driver issues one per region per family. A single ten-line Python file
@@ -88,15 +88,36 @@
- _Depends: 1.3_
- [ ] 2.2 The first repository measurement
- Run the full scan against that checkout and commit the artifact: CPG build time, scan wall-clock, peak
memory, findings by rung, cost, `regions_unjudged`, and **whether the known CVE was found and at which
rung**. If the repository cannot be processed in its envelope, record the stage it failed at.
- Run the full scan against that checkout and commit the artifact: CPG build time, query time and total
scan wall-clock as three separate numbers, peak memory, findings by rung, cost, `regions_unjudged`,
and **whether the known CVE was found and at which rung**. The build/query split is separated because
2.3 is decided on that ratio and cannot be decided on a single wall-clock figure. If the repository cannot be processed in its envelope, record the stage it failed at.
- This is the go/no-go for the shape of the rest: if one CPG per repository is infeasible, the region and
budget design changes and phases 3–6 should not be built on it first.
- Observable: the artifact exists with every field; the reading states go or no-go and why.
- _Requirements: 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, 4.5_
- _Depends: 2.1_
- [ ] 2.3 Decide on Joern server mode, on 2.2's numbers
- Joern offers `--server` with `--server-host`, `--server-port` and basic auth: one warm JVM with the CPG
loaded once, and queries in milliseconds after that. It would remove the three-to-four JVM starts
(~100s) that remain per scan now that 1.4 has batched the queries.
- **Deliberately sequenced after the measurement, because deciding it now would be optimising before
measuring.** Batching already moved query cost from O(regions) to O(1) per scan; whether the remaining
floor matters is a ratio 2.2 produces and nothing before it does. If a real CPG build takes ten minutes,
a 100s query floor is noise and server mode buys nothing. If the build is thirty seconds, the floor is
3x the build and server mode is the obvious next move.
- Costs to weigh against that ratio: process lifecycle (start, health, shutdown, orphan reaping -- stray
JVMs had to be killed by hand twice while building the batching); the seam weakening from "the subprocess
is the only Joern touch-point" to "subprocess or HTTP client", which is the promise that has kept the
backend replaceable; and that a CPGQL endpoint evaluates Scala, so it is arbitrary code execution on the
analysis host -- acceptable inside the shipped container, which runs `network_mode: none`, and much less
so as a port listening on a contributor's laptop.
- Observable: a recorded decision that cites 2.2's build-time-to-query-time split. A preference does not
close this task; a ratio does.
- _Requirements: 4.2_
- _Depends: 2.2_
## Group 3 — Ship it
- [ ] 3.1 Contributor output