Contributors check fails on CODEOWNERS with ^ character

[juanis2112]

Describe the bug

When running scorecard on the repo: https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm I run into the following error:

Error: check runtime error: Contributors: internal error: Client.Repositories.ListContributors: error during contributorsHandler.setup: error during ParseFile: line 55: unexpected character '^' at position 17
2025/08/25 12:22:59 error during command execution: check runtime error: Contributors: internal error: Client.Repositories.ListContributors: error during contributorsHandler.setup: error during ParseFile: line 55: unexpected character '^' at position 17
exit status 1

Reproduction steps

1. Run scorecards on the repo https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm using the CLI.

Expected behavior
The score for the contributors should be computed but instead it is showing a question mark.

Additional context
While running the Contributors check on vllm, the analysis fails due to the ^ character in line 55 of .github/CODEOWNERS.

The error originates in the codeowners package, specifically in parseRule, where ^ is not recognized as a valid pattern character (see isPatternChar).

Two Potential Solutions:

• Extend the isPatternChar function to include ^.
• Alternatively, implement a patch in the Scorecards package to skip invalid characters instead of failing.

I’d be happy to contribute a fix, would you recommend modifying the codeowners package or adding a patch to Scorecard itself?