GitHub Action
Anchore Container Scan
⚡ Find threats in files or containers at lightning speed ⚡
This is a GitHub Action for invoking the Grype scanner and returning the vulnerabilities found, and optionally fail if a vulnerability is found with a configurable severity level.
Use this in your workflows to quickly verify files or containers' content after a build and before pushing, allowing PRs, or deploying updates.
The action invokes the grype
command-line tool, with these benefits:
- Runs locally, without sending data outbound - no credentials required!
- Speedy scan operations
- Scans both paths and container images
- Easy failure evaluation depending on vulnerability severity
The example workflows have lots of usage examples for scanning both containers and directories.
By default, a scan will produce very detailed output on system packages like an RPM or DEB, but also language-based packages. These are some of the supported packages and libraries:
Supported Linux Distributions:
- Alpine
- BusyBox
- CentOS and RedHat
- Debian and Debian-based distros like Ubuntu
Supported packages and libraries:
- Ruby Bundles
- Python Wheel, Egg,
requirements.txt
- JavaScript NPM/Yarn
- Java JAR/EAR/WAR, Jenkins plugins JPI/HPI
- Go modules
The simplest workflow for scanning a localbuild/testimage
container:
- name: Set up Docker Buildx
uses: docker/setup-buildx-action@v2
- name: build local container
uses: docker/build-push-action@v4
with:
tags: localbuild/testimage:latest
push: false
load: true
- name: Scan image
uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
with:
image: "localbuild/testimage:latest"
To scan a directory, add the following step:
- name: Scan current project
uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
with:
path: "."
The path
key allows any valid path for the current project. The root of the path ("."
in this example) is the repository root.
Use the sbom
key to scan an SBOM file:
- name: Create SBOM
uses: anchore/sbom-action@v0
with:
format: spdx-json
output-file: "${{ github.event.repository.name }}-sbom.spdx.json"
- name: Scan SBOM
uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
with:
sbom: "${{ github.event.repository.name }}-sbom.spdx.json"
By default, if any vulnerability at medium
or higher is seen, the build fails. To have the build step fail in cases where there are vulnerabilities with a severity level different than the default, set the severity-cutoff
field to one of low
, high
, or critical
:
With a different severity level:
- name: Scan image
uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
with:
image: "localbuild/testimage:latest"
fail-build: true
severity-cutoff: critical
Optionally, change the fail-build
field to false
to avoid failing the build regardless of severity:
- name: Scan image
uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
with:
image: "localbuild/testimage:latest"
fail-build: false
The inputs image
, path
, and sbom
are mutually exclusive to specify the source to scan; all the other keys are optional. These are all the available keys to configure this action, along with the defaults:
Input Name | Description | Default Value |
---|---|---|
image |
The image to scan | N/A |
path |
The file path to scan | N/A |
sbom |
The SBOM to scan | N/A |
registry-username |
The registry username to use when authenticating to an external registry | |
registry-password |
The registry password to use when authenticating to an external registry | |
fail-build |
Fail the build if a vulnerability is found with a higher severity. That severity defaults to medium and can be set with severity-cutoff . |
true |
output-format |
Set the output parameter after successful action execution. Valid choices are json , sarif , and table , where table output will print to the console instead of generating a file. |
sarif |
severity-cutoff |
Optionally specify the minimum vulnerability severity to trigger a failure. Valid choices are "negligible", "low", "medium", "high" and "critical". Any vulnerability with a severity less than this value will lead to a "warning" result. Default is "medium". | medium |
only-fixed |
Specify whether to only report vulnerabilities that have a fix available. | false |
add-cpes-if-none |
Specify whether to autogenerate missing CPEs. | false |
by-cve |
Specify whether to orient results by CVE rather than GHSA. | false |
vex |
Specify a list of VEX documents to consider when producing scanning results. | false |
cache-db |
Cache the Grype DB in GitHub action cache and restore before checking for updates | false |
grype-version |
An optional Grype version to download, defaults to the pinned version in GrypeVersion.js. |
Output Name | Description | Type |
---|---|---|
sarif |
Path to the SARIF report file, if output-format is sarif |
string |
json |
Path to the report file , if output-format is json |
string |
Assuming your repository has a Dockerfile in the root directory:
name: Container Image CI
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@b4ffde65f46336ab88eb53be808477a3936bae11 # v4.1.1
- name: Build the container image
run: docker build . --file Dockerfile --tag localbuild/testimage:latest
- uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
with:
image: "localbuild/testimage:latest"
fail-build: true
Same example as above, but with SARIF output format - as is the default, the action will generate a SARIF report, which can be uploaded and then displayed as a Code Scanning Report in the GitHub UI.
💡 Code Scanning is a Github service that is currently in Beta. Follow the instructions on how to enable this service for your project.
name: Container Image CI
on: [push]
jobs:
build:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- uses: actions/checkout@b4ffde65f46336ab88eb53be808477a3936bae11 # v4.1.1
- name: Build the Container image
run: docker build . --file Dockerfile --tag localbuild/testimage:latest
- uses: anchore/scan-action@v3
id: scan
with:
image: "localbuild/testimage:latest"
- name: upload Anchore scan SARIF report
uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
with:
sarif_file: ${{ steps.scan.outputs.sarif }}
Optionally, you can add a step to inspect the SARIF report produced:
- name: Inspect action SARIF report
run: cat ${{ steps.scan.outputs.sarif }}
You may add a .grype.yaml
file at your repository root
for more Grype configuration
such as ignoring certain matches.
A sub-action to download Grype and optionally cache the Grype DB.
Input parameters:
Parameter | Description | Default |
---|---|---|
grype-version |
An optional Grype version to download, defaults to the pinned version in GrypeVersion.js. | |
cache-db |
Cache the Grype DB in GitHub action cache and restore before checking for updates | false |
Output parameters:
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
cmd |
a reference to the Grype binary. |
cmd
can be referenced in a workflow like other output parameters:
${{ steps.<step-id>.outputs.cmd }}
Example usage:
- uses: anchore/scan-action/download-grype@v3
id: grype
- run: ${{steps.grype.outputs.cmd}} dir:.
We love contributions, feedback, and bug reports. For issues with the invocation of this action, file issues in this repository.
For contributing, see Contributing.
For documentation on Grype itself, including other output capabilities, see the grype project
Connect with the community directly on Discourse.
This action makes extensive use of GitHub Action debug logging,
which can be enabled as described here
by setting a secret in your repository of ACTIONS_STEP_DEBUG
to true
.