Competitive Triage UI Patterns - Design Document

Sprint: SPRINT_20251226_010_FE_visual_diff_enhancements Task: VD-ENH-09 Status: Complete Author: Implementation Team Date: 2025-12-26

Overview

This document captures competitive insights from leading vulnerability management tools and recommends patterns for adoption in StellaOps’ visual diff and triage UI.

Competitive Analysis

Snyk — Reachability + Continuous Context

What they do:

• Reachability analysis builds call graphs to determine if vulnerable code is actually reachable
• Risk scores factor in reachability, not just CVSS severity
• Static program analysis combined with AI and expert curation
• Continuous monitoring tracks issues over time as projects are rescanned

Adoption recommendation: ✅ Already implemented

• GraphDiffComponent visualizes reachability graphs with call paths
• Hover highlighting shows connected paths from entry points to sinks
• Plain language explanations help users understand “why” a finding matters

Anchore — Vulnerability Annotations & VEX Export

What they do:

• Vulnerability annotation workflows via UI or API
• Labels: “not applicable”, “mitigated”, “under investigation”
• Export as OpenVEX and CycloneDX VEX formats
• Curated reasoning reduces redundant triage downstream

Adoption recommendation: ✅ Already implemented

• TriageWorkspaceComponent provides VEX decisioning with trust levels
• DeltaVerdict backend exports signed VEX statements
• Attestable exception objects with expiries and audit trails

Prisma Cloud — Runtime Defense

What they do:

• Runtime profiling and behavioral baselines for containers
• Process, file, and network rule enforcement
• Learning models detect anomalies
• Runtime context during operational incidents

Adoption recommendation: ⚠️ Partial - Signals module

• Signals module provides runtime observation correlation
• Hot symbol index tracks runtime function execution
• Integration with FuncProof links runtime observations to static analysis

Recommended UI Patterns

1. Unified Triage Canvas

Pattern: Single view combining static analysis with runtime evidence

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                        TRIAGE CANVAS                             │
├──────────────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────────────────┤
│   Graph View     │   Evidence Panel   │   Decision Panel        │
│                  │                    │                         │
│  ┌─────┐         │  • SBOM Component  │  ○ Not Affected         │
│  │main │────►    │  • VEX Statement   │  ○ Under Investigation  │
│  └─────┘    │    │  • Reachability    │  ○ Affected             │
│             ▼    │  • Runtime Obs.    │  ○ Fixed                │
│       ┌─────┐    │  • Policy Match    │                         │
│       │vuln │    │                    │  [Record Decision]      │
│       └─────┘    │                    │                         │
└──────────────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

Implementation: Already complete via TriageWorkspaceComponent + GraphDiffComponent

2. Exploitability Scoring Visualization

Pattern: Visual risk score breakdown showing contributing factors

Implementation: ProofTreeComponent displays trust score breakdown with donut chart

3. Attack Path Diagrams

Pattern: Entry point → vulnerable function path highlighting

• Color-coded paths (green=safe, red=vulnerable, amber=uncertain)
• Hop count indicators
• Confidence levels per path segment
• Interactive path exploration with zoom-to-fit

Implementation: GraphDiffComponent with findPath() and path highlighting

4. Evidence Provenance Indicators

Pattern: Visual indicators showing evidence source and trust level

Implementation: ProofTreeComponent with evidence chunk icons

Adoption Status

Differentiation Strategy

StellaOps differentiates from competitors by unifying these patterns into a single, evidence-rich, policy-driven triage experience:

1. Evidence-first: Every decision is backed by cryptographic evidence
2. Policy-driven: VEX as core policy objects, not just export format
3. Attestable: Exceptions are attestable contracts with audit trails
4. Offline-capable: Same UI/interactions work in air-gapped environments
5. Deterministic: Reproducible verdicts across runs and environments

References

• Snyk Reachability Analysis
• Anchore Vulnerability Annotations
• Prisma Cloud Runtime Defense