Authenticate to use the CLI

To scan your projects, you must authenticate with Snyk.

If you are not in the system default environment, SNYK-US-01, use the snyk config environment command to set your environment before you run snyk auth.

How to authenticate to use the CLI locally

Steps to authenticate using OAuth 2.0 protocol

When you are using the CLI locally, Snyk recommends that you use the OAuth 2.0 protocol. Follow these steps:

Run the snyk auth CLI command.
Log in if you are prompted to do so.
The next page asks for your authorization for the CLI to act on your behalf. Click Grant app access.
After you authenticate successfully, view the confirmation message; then close the browser window and return to the CLI in the terminal.

After authentication is granted, a pair of access and refresh tokens is stored locally for future use.

If you have problems, see OAuth 2.0 authentication does not work.

OAuth 2.0 tokens are not static. You cannot copy these tokens from your Snyk account page.

Steps to retrieve the Snyk API token and use it to authenticate

This method is inferior to the OAuth 2.0 method.

To authenticate using your Snyk API token, follow these steps:

Run thesnyk auth --auth-type=token CLI command
Log in if you are prompted to do so.
The next page prompts you to authenticate your machine to associate the Snyk CLI or the IDE plugin with your account. Click Authenticate.
After you authenticate successfully, a confirmation message appears. Close the browser window and return to the CLI in the terminal.

After you complete the dialog, the API token is stored locally for future use.

All subsequent test commands will be authenticated automatically.

Steps to authenticate using a known Snyk API token

You can copy your personal API token from your General Account settings (under your username) in the Snyk Web UI, and then configure your CLI to use it locally.

All CLI test commands can automatically recognize the environment variable SNYK_TOKEN and use it for authentication. For details, see Environment variables for Snyk CLI.

To use API token-based authentication, set the SNYK_TOKEN environment variable and run the test command, for example: SNYK_TOKEN=<SNYK_API_TOKEN> snyk test

Alternatively, you can export the environment variable to make it available for future test commands: export SNYK_TOKEN=<SNYK_API_TOKEN> snyk test

This form of authentication is particularly useful for CI/CD pipelines. See How to authenticate to use the CLI in CI/CD pipelines.

You can also store the Snyk API token locally for later use by running the following CLI command: snyk auth <SNYK_API_TOKEN>

All subsequent test calls will be authenticated automatically. For more information, see the Auth command help.

How to authenticate to use the CLI in CI/CD pipelines

Free and Team plan users are more likely to use this method in a CI/CD pipeline than to use OAuth 2.0. Enterprise plan customers are advised to use a service account in a CI/CD pipeline. For detailes about when to use an API token and when to use a service account token, see Authentication for API.