sourcelook

Sourcelook is a conceptual framework and set of tools designed to trace the provenance and external references of source code and data within software projects. It aims to connect code fragments to their original sources—such as libraries, documentation, datasets, tests, or licensing texts—to aid auditing, reproducibility, and compliance.

Core features include automatic provenance mapping, language-agnostic support, integration with version control systems, and an exportable manifest that records source references with confidence scores and timestamps. It can annotate code with lightweight metadata and generate reports suitable for audits or scholarly work.

The typical architecture comprises a client that analyzes repositories, a provenance database that stores mappings, and an ingestion pipeline that collects package metadata, license files, and documentation. It relies on static analysis, dependency graphs, and, where available, machine-readable licenses or citation conventions.

Adoption remains experimental in most ecosystems. Proponents highlight benefits for reproducibility and license compliance, while critics raise concerns about privacy, accuracy, and the ongoing maintenance required to keep provenance data up to date across evolving codebases.

Sourcelook intersects with software provenance, license compliance tooling, code citation practices, and reproducible research. It is distinct from traditional code search by emphasizing origin, lineage, and verifiable references rather than mere location of code.