What Is Included in a Code Audit Report?

What is included in a code audit report?

A good code audit report has an executive summary with a clear recommendation, a list of findings ranked by severity, a prioritized fix roadmap, and an estimate of the cost to fix or extend the code. Stronger reports also cover security, hidden liabilities, architecture, tests and the history of the repository.

We compared the published deliverables of more than twenty audit and due diligence firms in October 2026. The same pieces appear again and again, which gives you a reasonable checklist for judging any report you are offered or handed.

What sections should the report contain?

Expect an executive summary, a scorecard and roadmap, detailed findings, a security review, hidden liabilities, architecture and quality notes, a history read, a cost estimate and a readout call. If a report skips most of these, you bought a scan, not an audit. In more detail:

• • Executive summary. One page a non-technical reader can act on, with a go or no-go, or a keep, reprice or walk-away call.
• • Scorecard and roadmap. A scored view of the codebase and a prioritized remediation plan.
• • Findings. Each issue with where it is (file and line), why it matters, severity, and a suggested fix.
• • Security review. Login and permissions, data isolation between customers, secrets handling, injection, and exposure through outdated dependencies.
• • Hidden liabilities. Open-source license problems, accounts the vendor owns instead of you, key-person dependence, undocumented third-party services.
• • Architecture and quality. Structure, scalability, technical debt, the state of tests and automated builds.
• • History read. What the repository's commit history says about pace and who did the work.
• • Cost to run and extend. Hosting costs and fixed-price bands for the fixes.
• • Readout call. A live walkthrough so you can ask questions.

When the audit follows a failed project, add two more: a rescue-versus-rewrite recommendation, and an inventory of every account and credential with who controls each. Firms that sell project rescue treat these as core deliverables.

Which standards and frameworks do auditors use?

Auditors map findings to public standards so they can be checked by someone else. The ones named most often are the OWASP Top 10, OWASP ASVS with CWE identifiers, and ISO/IEC 25010 for software quality. Compliance-driven reviews also reference SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS or GDPR.

• • OWASP Top 10. A widely used list of the most common web application security risks. Several firms name it as the baseline for a security pass.
• • OWASP ASVS. The Application Security Verification Standard is a detailed checklist. Invadel maps findings to ASVS and to CWE, a catalog of known weakness types.
• • ISO/IEC 25010. An international product quality model. Software Improvement Group uses it for software quality ratings in due diligence.
• • SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI-DSS, GDPR. Not code standards themselves. Reports may check that the code supports the controls you need.

A framework name on a sales page does not prove the work was done. Ask for a sample report and look for the identifiers inside the findings.

What tools do auditors use, and are tools enough?

Tools find known patterns. They do not judge whether the software does what you paid for. Firms commonly cite SonarQube for code quality, Snyk and GitHub Advanced Security for dependency and code scanning, and Black Duck for open-source licensing. Semgrep also comes up in practitioner advice for running your own checks.

Tool output is the start of an audit. A scanner can flag a vulnerable library. It cannot tell you that customer A can read customer B's records because of how a permission check was written, or that the feature in the contract was never built. That needs a person reading the code against the requirements.

Some newer firms use AI assistance for part of the review. That is fine when a person checks the output. The useful question to ask is what the AI does and what a human confirms.

What does a findings table look like?

A findings table lists each issue with an ID, a plain description, where it sits in the code, a severity and a suggested fix. Each entry should be specific enough that a developer can act on it without a meeting. The table below is an illustrative example of the format, not a real client result.

Notice what is there: a location, a plain description, a severity, and a fix. A finding without those is an opinion.

How do you read the severity ratings?

Severity tells you what to fix first, not how bad the developer is. Critical and high items can expose customer data or money and should be handled now. Medium items are real but can be scheduled. Low items are cleanup. A good report states its scale and applies it consistently.

Read ratings with three questions in mind:

• • What could happen? Data exposure and payment problems outrank style issues.
• • How easy is it to trigger? An issue anyone can reach from the public site is worse than one needing admin access.
• • What does it cost to fix? A critical item with a one-line fix goes first. A medium item that needs a rewrite needs a plan.

Some firms escalate critical findings within a day instead of waiting for the final report. Elvt states this on its audit page. Ask whether your auditor will do the same.

What should you ask for before you buy an audit?

Ask for a sample report, a written scope, and a clear statement of who reads the code. Check that findings include location, severity and a fix. Confirm what happens if a critical issue turns up mid-review, and whether you can take the report to another developer without strings attached.

Also ask where the deliverables live. Some firms deliver everything to your own storage with no portal or expiry, as Brocoders states on its page. You should own the report you paid for.

How does Cuanto Labs structure its reports?

Cuanto Labs writes reports for the person who signs the invoice, in plain English, with the technical detail underneath for the next developer. Our Code Audit (from $4,000, about 2 weeks) is for companies and inherited codebases. Software Technical Due Diligence (from $7,500, 5 to 10 business days) is for acquirers and investors.

If a developer stopped or did not deliver, start with the Project Health Check: $1,500 flat for up to about 50K lines, $2,500 for larger codebases, 5 business days. It covers whether the project builds and runs, a gap table of deliverables against your contract or SOW, an ownership and access checklist, the top code and security issues, a commit-activity timeline set against your invoices, and a fix-or-rebuild estimate. It is independent. You do not have to hire us for the fix.

To talk through which report fits, book a call.