Digger: Infrastructure Automation Ledger 2026 Scorecard

Part of the Infrastructure Automation Ledger (edition 2026-10-16). How the scores work: methodology.

Snapshot

• Type: product (open core; the project was renamed OpenTaco on 2025-11-07, the company is still Digger)
• Owner: Digger Inc. (private startup; country, funding and investors not found; no acquisition found)
• Engine: runs Terraform, OpenTofu and Terragrunt inside your existing CI system
• Licence: MIT core; the ee/ directory (enterprise backend, drift service) under the Digger Enterprise License, production use per user seat; no price list found
• Latest release: v0.6.154 (2026-10-07); Backend EE 0.1.7.32 and Drift 0.1.1.6 (2026-05-04)
• Support lifecycle: none published
• Next milestone: none published; remote runs are in Beta
• Targets: Terraform and OpenTofu binaries supplied by your CI runner (no version ceiling documented in the sources read, 2026-10-15), Terragrunt; self-hosted orchestrator; GitHub confirmed, other VCS described in the docs
• Tier: IaC management platform
• Archetype: Slow follower
• Evidence grade: B. Licence files, README, rename notice and the GitHub release list were read from primary sources (2026-10-15). The docs overview is short and release years are inferred from the page footer and Atom feed. Pricing and funding were not found. Scores start in 2023, the last year named in the ee/LICENSE copyright header; earlier release history was not read.

Scorecard

Capability by domain, 2015 to today

Scores 0 to 5 against fixed anchors; total is weighted to 100.

Year by year: 2023: 27.4 · 2024: 27.4 · 2025: 27.4 · 2026: 34.1

What moved the score

Direction, 2023 to 2026

Each release item carries one theme and one driver (V vision, C customer need, M market window, U upstream, P portfolio).

• Centre of gravity: State and planning (4), Packaging (3), Orchestration (2)
• Blind spots (no items): Configuration management, Language, Scale, Bare metal, Ecosystem, AI, Licensing
• Driver mix: Vision 27%, Customer need 45%, Market window 18%, Upstream 0%, Portfolio 9%
• Idea-to-need index: 0.30 (0 = demand-pulled, 1 = thesis-pushed)

Credibility: 14.5 / 25

Commercial risk: 11.0 / 25 (lower is better)

Technical lock-in: 4.5 / 25 (lower is better)

Integrator fit: 6.5 / 20

AI leverage: 1.0 / 20

How the product uses AI, scored per year like capability. Only GA counts.

Year by year: 2023: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2026: 1

AI say-do, 2023 to 2026: 0 AI items announced; 0 GA, 0 still preview, 0 pending, 0 dropped. No AI item was found in the README or the docs overview; other docs sections were not fully browsed.

Digger has no AI feature and no MCP server in the sources read. The sandbox runner is infrastructure for remote execution, with no AI role stated.

Reading

Digger started as the Atlantis alternative that runs inside your CI, and since the OpenTaco rename it is becoming a small platform with its own state service, drift detection and remote runs. The capability score is close to Atlantis today and will move if the Beta pieces land; the lock-in score is low because the orchestrator sits beside your CI rather than replacing it. The archetype reflects a thin public record (no roadmap, no pricing, a rename still half applied) rather than the release pace, which is fortnightly. Before depending on it, ask for the price list and the legal entity, neither of which is public, and note that owner stability carries the highest risk score of the six.

Open questions and items to re-score

• Legal entity, country, funding and Y Combinator batch: not found (the YC profile URL returned 404).
• Pricing: both pricing URLs returned 404; the licence says per seat.
• When the ee/ directory became proprietary.
• Releases between 2025-10-15 and 2026-01-20 were not read.
• Whether OpenTaco has an MCP server or AI feature in docs sections not browsed.
• Supported VCS list beyond GitHub; SSO; multi-tenancy.

Related reading

• Infrastructure Automation Ledger 2026 overview
• Proxmox automation
• Terraform vs manual Proxmox deployment