Install or update the Snyk CLI

You can install or update the Snyk CLI using the methods explained on this page.

After you install the Snyk CLI, you must authenticate. Then you can get started testing and fixing your vulnerabilities, beginning with testing your installation.

Snyk recommends always keeping your CLI installation updated to the latest version. You can check which version of the Snyk CLI you have installed by running snyk --version.

For information about installing the CLI for an IDE, see the IDE documentation. You can also install the CLI in a CI/CD environment. For details, see the CI/CD documentation.

Install with standalone executables

When you use this method, you must keep the Snyk CLI up to date manually.

Use GitHub Releases to download a standalone executable (macOS, Linux, Windows) of Snyk CLI for your platform.

Snyk also provides these standalone executables on the Snyk Content Delivery Network (CDN). See the latest release.json file for the download links. Examples for a specific version or platform follow:

• https://downloads.snyk.io/cli/v<Version>/release.json

• https://downloads.snyk.io/cli/stable/release.json

• https://downloads.snyk.io/cli/stable/snyk-macos

For example, to download and run the latest Snyk CLI on macOS, you could run:

curl --compressed https://downloads.snyk.io/cli/stable/snyk-macos -o snyk
chmod +x ./snyk
mv ./snyk /usr/local/bin/

You can also use these direct links to download the executables:

OS\Architecture	amd64	arm64
macOS	snyk-macos	snyk-macos-arm64
Linux	snyk-linux	snyk-linux-arm64
Alpine	snyk-alpine	snyk-alpine-arm64
Windows	snyk-win.exe	-

You can rename the files for example snyk-win.exe to snyk.exe so you can run snyk commands as documented, for example, snyk test.

To use CLI releases before version 1.1230.0 on an Apple M1 or M2 machine (darwin/arm64), see Using CLI releases before version 1.1230.0 on an Apple M1 or M2 machine.

To use the CLI with Alpine Linux, see Prerequisites for CLI and Jenkins plugin on Alpine Linux operating system.

For more information see verify CLI standalone binaries.

Install with Homebrew (macOS, Linux)

Install Snyk CLI from Snyk's tap with Homebrew by running the following. The tap is updated daily with the latest Snyk CLI release.

brew tap snyk/tap
brew install snyk

For Apple M1 or M2 (darwin/arm64), see: Using CLI releases before version 1.1230.0 on an Apple M1 or M2 machine.

Install with Scoop (Windows)

Install Snyk CLI from Snyk's bucket with Scoop by running the following. The bucket is updated daily with the latest Snyk CLI release.

scoop bucket add snyk https://github.com/snyk/scoop-snyk
scoop install snyk

Install the Snyk CLI with npm or Yarn

Before installing the Snyk CLI using npm, be sure you have installed the prerequisites:

• Install the latest version of npm in your local environment, using Node.js version 12 or later. For information on how to update Node.js see Install or upgrade to version of Node.js required for Snyk CLI.

• To run Snyk on Alpine Linux, first install libstdc++. For more information see Prerequisites for CLI and Jenkins plugin on Alpine Linux operating system.

Then follow these steps to install with npm or Yarn:

Snyk CLI is available as an npm package. If you have Node.js installed locally, you can install the npm package by running npm install snyk -g.

If you are using Yarn, install by running yarn global add snyk.

For additional information see Installing Snyk CLI as a binary using npm.

Snyk CLI in a Docker image

Snyk CLI can also be run from a Docker image. Snyk offers multiple Docker images under snyk/snyk on Docker Hub. See snyk/snyk-images on GitHub for details.

These images wrap the Snyk CLI and, depending on the Tag, come with relevant tooling for different projects. An example follows for scanning a Gradle project with snyk/snyk:

docker run -it \
    -e "SNYK_TOKEN=<TOKEN>" \
    -v "<PROJECT_DIRECTORY>:/project" \
    -v "/home/user/.gradle:/home/node/.gradle" \
  snyk/snyk:gradle:6.4 test --org=my-org-name

This is an example for scanning a Maven project with snyk/snyk:

docker run --rm \
-e SNYK_TOKEN=<YOUR_SNYK_TOKEN> \
-v <PROJECT_DIRECTORY>:/app \
-v <PROJECT_DIRECTORY>/settings.xml:/root/.m2/settings.xml \
snyk/snyk:maven snyk monitor \
--all-projects=true \
--maven-aggregate-project

Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)

Snyk CLI does not natively support WSL. It may be possible to install and use the CLI in a WSL environment, but compatibility is not guaranteed.

By extension, some Snyk integrations, such as IDE extensions and CI/CD plugins that rely on the CLI, also do not natively support WSL.