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GitHub Copilot guide

You can access Snyk Studio, including Snyk's MCP server, in VSCode to secure code generated with agentic workflows through Copilot. This can be achieved in several ways. For most users, we recommend accessing Snyk Studio using the Snyk Security plugin.

Recommended: Access Snyk Studio using the Snyk Security Plugin

  • Click this link to open up the Snyk Security plugin directly

  • Click Install

Enable Secure At Inception

Once installation completes, a modal window will appear prompting an opt-in to Snyk Studio's "Secure at Inception." This will automatically configure the necessary rules to scan any new AI generated code. Additional variations are available within the plugin's Settings page.

Authenticate

Once you've made a selection regarding Secure at Inception, you'll be asked to authenticate. You can authenticate at two points in this process:

  • Immediately after plugin install

  • Prior to your first Snyk code scan

As part of the authentication flow, you'll be asked to either sign up or sign in on the Snyk website. A browser window will open.

For new users, select the preferred sign up method and agree to the terms on the next screen. Once you've successfully authenticated, you'll be instructed to return to your IDE.

Please note: In order to use Snyk Studio, specifically Snyk's SAST scanning capabilities, you'll need to enable Snyk Code. Snyk Code analyzes your code for vulnerabilities and temporarily clones the repository and/or uploads your code. Cloned or uploaded code is cached according to our data retention policy. With the Snyk Free Plan, Snyk Code offers unlimited scans for open source projects, and limited tests for 1st-party code. More details on plans

For existing users, select the log-in method associated with your account. If you don't already have access to Snyk Code, your LLM will prompt you to enable it prior to your first scan. You can also enable it directly in Snyk's Settings.

Please note: If you are enabling Snyk Code for the first time, you must import / re-import existing projects in order to properly scan them.

Run Snyk Studio

Once authenticated, Snyk Studio should be triggered whenever new code is generated by the LLM. If Snyk Studio is not enabled, restart your IDE and try generating code again.

Please note: Free users are limited to a set number of scans. If you reach the allotment, we recommend reaching out to sales to unlock additional thresholds.

Alternate: Install Snyk Studio Directly

Prerequisites

Install GitHub Copilot

Add the GitHub Copilot extension to VS Code. For mode details, see the official Setup GitHub Copilot on VS Code guide.

Install the Snyk MCP Server in GitHub Copilot

Install the Snyk MCP Server using the method that best suits your operating system and local development environment.

Install using the Snyk extension (preferred)

Installing the extension using one of the following methods:

  • View the Snyk Security extension for VS Code from the marketplace and install it.

  • Open the Extensions: Install Extensions side-pane, search for Snyk Security and install it.\

VS Code automatically detects the Snyk MCP Server, but it needs to be explicitly enabled.

Enable the Snyk MCP Server using one of the following methods:

  • Open the Command Palette by pressing CMD + SHIFT + P on macOS or CTRL + SHIFT + P on Windows, choose the MCP: List Servers, and then find Snyk MCP Server in the list and enable all tools.

  • In the GitHub Copilot chat box, click the Tools icon.

You can see a list of all MCP Servers and their tool. Locate Snyk from the list and enable all of its tools:

Install with Node.js and npx

Create or edit the MCP configuration file .vscode/mcp.json in the root directory of your Project.

If you have the Node.js npx executable installed in your environment, add the following JSON snippet to the file:

{
  "servers": {
    "Snyk": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "snyk@latest", "mcp", "-t", "stdio"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Install with pre-installed Snyk CLI

Create or edit the MCP configuration file .vscode/mcp.json in the root directory of your Project.

If you have the Snyk CLI installed and accessible on your system path, include the following JSON snippet in the file. You might need to specify the full path to the Snyk executable CLI:

{
  "servers": {
    "Snyk": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/snyk",
      "args": ["mcp", "-t", "stdio"],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

If the snyk command is not available, add it by following the instructions on the Installing or updating the Snyk CLI page.

The following example shows a Snyk MCP Server that was successfully configured and started.

For additional MCP configuration options on VS Code and troubleshooting, consult the official VS Code MCP server documentation.

Setting up the Snyk MCP Server

As a one-time setup, you may need to authenticate and trust the Project directory. If required, the agentic workflow will likely manage this automatically.

These workflows are mostly automatically executed by the underlying model and the agentic code assistant, and you will need to approve them using a browser confirmation dialog. The process should look similar to this:

If you need to authenticate and trust the current directory, then proceed and complete the process.

Examples

Scanning for security vulnerabilities

In the chat, you can tag specific files or functions and ask Copilot to scan your code for safely deploying to production:

prompt
Scan this directory for code security & dependency vulnerabilities and security issues

Copilot indicates that this request is related to security vulnerability scanning and calls the Snyk MCP Server for various scans.

Copilot is then able to gather all the security scanning results, both code (SAST) and dependencies (SCA), and based on recommendations and contextual information provided by the Snyk MCP Server, it is now able to provide code changes that address some or all of the security vulnerabilities that were found:

"Secure at inception" rules

To practice Secure at Inception, Snyk recommends adopting rules that align the LLM for secure code generation and workflows.

The following is a suggested instruction for GitHub Copilot custom instructions. Append the following contents to the rules file at .github/copilot-instructions.md:

.github/copilot-instructions.md
---
alwaysApply: true
always_on: true
trigger: always_on
applyTo: "**"
description: Snyk Security At Inception
---

# Project security best practices

- Always run **snyk_code_scan** tool for new first party code that is generated in a Snyk-supported language.
- If any security issues are found based on newly introduced or modified code or dependencies, attempt to fix the issues using the results context from **Snyk**.
- Rescan the code after fixing the issues to ensure that the issues were fixed and that there are no newly introduced issues.
- Repeat this process until no new issues are found.
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