# Vet an open-source library before adding it

Evaluates a dependency for maintenance health, security, license fit, and lock-in so you can decide whether to adopt it.

- Topic: Software Development
- Framework: Few-Shot
- Level: Standard
- Tags: Write, Analyze, Fill-in Template
- Source: https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/prompts/vet-an-open-source-library-before-adding-it

## Prompt

```text
Help me decide whether to add an open-source library to our codebase.

**Library and version:** [NAME, VERSION, LINK]
**What I need it for:** [THE PROBLEM IT SOLVES]
**Alternatives:** [OTHER LIBRARIES, OR "WRITE IT OURSELVES"]
**Our product and licensing context:** [e.g. "closed-source SaaS", "distributed mobile app", "open-source under MIT"]
**What I've found so far:** [STARS, LAST RELEASE, OPEN ISSUES, CONTRIBUTORS, DOWNLOADS, KNOWN CVEs - paste what you checked]

Evaluate against:
1. **Fit:** does it solve my problem without pulling in far more than I need? Bundle or binary size impact.
2. **Maintenance health:** release cadence, number of active maintainers (bus factor), issue and PR responsiveness, funding or company backing.
3. **Security:** known vulnerabilities, how they've been handled historically, transitive dependency count, install scripts, and supply-chain red flags.
4. **License:** compatibility with how we distribute our software. Flag copyleft obligations (GPL, AGPL, LGPL) and anything unusual. This is general information; confirm with legal for anything unclear.
5. **Lock-in:** how hard it would be to replace, and whether we should wrap it behind our own interface.
6. **Quality:** docs, types, test coverage, API stability.

Use only the facts I provided; for anything you can't verify, list it under "Check before deciding" with how to check it (e.g. registry pages, vulnerability databases, the repo's commit history).

Return a scorecard table (criterion, finding, rating: good/concern/blocker), a recommendation (adopt / adopt with a wrapper / avoid / build it ourselves), and the reasoning in 5 sentences.
```

## What to fill in

- NAME, VERSION, LINK
- THE PROBLEM IT SOLVES
- OTHER LIBRARIES, OR "WRITE IT OURSELVES"

Free to copy and use. From ThinkWithPrompt (https://www.thinkwithprompt.com/), a library of 2,663 curated AI prompts.