Getting started with the Snyk CLI
Snyk is a developer-first, cloud-native security tool to scan and monitor your software development projects for security vulnerabilities. Snyk scans multiple content types for security issues:
The Snyk CLI brings the functionality of Snyk into your development workflow. You can run the CLI locally or in your CI/CD pipeline. The following shows an example of Snyk CLI test command output.
Snyk CLI test command output
Snyk CLI scanning supports many languages and tools. For detailed information, see the summary of supported environments. For details about how Snyk scans each content type, see the following:
This page explains how to install, authenticate, and start scanning using the CLI. Snyk also has an onboarding wizard to guide you through these steps. For a demonstration, view Starting with Snyk: an overview of the CLI onboarding flow.
To use the CLI, you must install it and authenticate your machine. See Install or update the Snyk CLI and the Auth command help. You can refer to the release notes for a summary of changes in each release. Before scanning your code, review the Code execution warning for Snyk CLI.
Note: Before you can use the CLI for Open Source scanning, you must install your package manager. The needed third-party tools, such as Gradle or Maven, must be in the PATH.
You can use the CLI in your IDE or CI/CD environment. For details, see Install as part of a Snyk integration.
You can authorize Snyk CLI in your CI/CD programmatically:
- Using a SNYK_TOKEN envvar (preferred)
SNYK_TOKEN=<SNYK_API_TOKEN> snyk test - Or using a Snyk
authcommandsnyk auth <SNYK_API_TOKEN>snyk test
After authenticating, you can test your installation. For a quick test, run
snyk --help.Alternatively, you can perform a quick test on a public npm package, for example
snyk test ionic.Look at the
test command report in your terminal. The report shows the vulnerabilities Snyk found in the package. For each issue found, Snyk reports the severity of the issue, provides a link to a detailed description, reports the path through which the vulnerable module got into your system, and provides guidance on how to fix the problem.Note: Before using the Snyk CLI to test your Open Source Project for vulnerabilities, with limited exceptions, you must build your Project. For details, see Which Projects must be built before testing with CLI?
In addition, depending on the language of your open-source Project, you may need to set up your language environment before using the Snyk CLI. For details, refer to Open Source language and package manager support.
After you have installed the CLI and authenticated your machine, to scan an open-source Project, use
cd /my/project/ to change the current directory toafolder containing a supported package manifest file, such as package.json, pom.xml, or composer.lock. Then run snyk test. All vulnerabilities identified are listed, including their path and fix guidance.To scan your source code run
snyk code test.You can scan a Docker image by its tag using Snyk Container by running, for example:
snyk container test ubuntu:18.04.To scan a Kubernetes (K8s) file run the following:
snyk iac test /path/to/kubernetes_file.yamlFor details about how Snyk scans each content type, see the following:
Snyk can monitor your Project periodically and alert you to new vulnerabilities. To set up your Project to be monitored, run
snyk monitor or snyk container monitor.This creates a snapshot of your current dependencies so Snyk can regularly scan your code. Snyk can then alert you about newly disclosed vulnerabilities as they are introduced or when a previously unavailable patch or upgrade path is created. The following code shows an example of the output of the
snyk monitor command.> snyk monitor
Monitoring /project (project-name)...
Explore this snapshot at
https://app.snyk.io/org/my-org/project/29361c2c-9005-4692
-8df4-88f1c040fa7c/history/e1c994b3-de5d-482b-9281-eab4236c851e
Notifications about newly disclosed issues related to these
dependencies will be emailed to you.
You can log in to the Snyk Web UI and navigate to the Projects page to find the latest snapshot and scan results:
Snyk monitor snapshot and scan results
If you run out of tests on an open-source Project, follow these steps:
- Run
snyk monitor. - Open the Snyk UI and navigate to the settings of the Project.
- Enter the URL of your open-source repository in Git remote URL.
In particular, see the information about the following options that you may find useful:
--severity-threshold=low|medium|high|critical: Report only vulnerabilities of the specified level or higher--json: Print results in JSON format--all-projects: Auto-detect all Projects in the working directory
For detailed information about the CLI, see the CLI docs. For information about scanning for each content type, see the following pages:
Submit a ticket to Snyk support whenever you need help with the Snyk CLI or Snyk in general. Note that Snyk support does not actively monitor GitHub Issues on any Snyk project.
The Snyk CLI project is open-source, but Snyk does not encourage outside contributors.
The Snyk CLI repository is a monorepo that also covers other projects and tools, such as @snyk/protect, also available at npm package for snyk-protect command.
Last modified 1mo ago