12-factor-apps

12-Factor App Compliance Analysis

Reference: The Twelve-Factor App

Overview

The 12-Factor App methodology is a set of best practices for building Software-as-a-Service applications that are:

• Portable across execution environments
• Scalable without architectural changes
• Suitable for continuous deployment
• Maintainable with minimal friction

Input Parameters

Parameter	Description	Required
codebase_path	Root path of the codebase to analyze	Required

Analysis Framework

Factor I: Codebase

Principle: One codebase tracked in revision control, many deploys.

Search Patterns:

# Check for version control
ls -la .git 2>/dev/null || ls -la .hg 2>/dev/null

# Check for multiple apps sharing codebase
find . -name "package.json" -o -name "pyproject.toml" -o -name "setup.py" | head -20

# Check for environment-specific code branches
grep -r "if.*production\|if.*development\|if.*staging" --include="*.py" --include="*.js" --include="*.ts"

File Patterns: .git/, package.json, pyproject.toml, deployment configs

Compliance Criteria:

Level	Criteria
Strong	Single Git repo, same codebase for all environments, no env-specific code branches
Partial	Single repo but some environment-specific code paths
Weak	Multiple repos for same app or significant code duplication across environments

Anti-patterns:

• Multiple Git repositories for the same application
• Environment-specific code branches (if production: ...)
• Different source files for dev vs prod
• Shared code not extracted to libraries

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Factor II: Dependencies

Principle: Explicitly declare and isolate dependencies.

Search Patterns:

# Python dependency files
find . -name "requirements.txt" -o -name "pyproject.toml" -o -name "setup.py" -o -name "Pipfile" -o -name "uv.lock"

# JavaScript/TypeScript dependency files
find . -name "package.json" -o -name "package-lock.json" -o -name "yarn.lock" -o -name "pnpm-lock.yaml"

# Check for system tool assumptions
grep -r "subprocess.*curl\|subprocess.*wget\|os.system.*ffmpeg\|shutil.which" --include="*.py"
grep -r "exec.*curl\|child_process.*curl" --include="*.js" --include="*.ts"

# Docker/container isolation
find . -name "Dockerfile" -o -name "docker-compose*.yml"