name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner in fs mode
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'fs'
scan-ref: '.'
trivy-config: trivy.yaml
In this case trivy.yaml is a YAML configuration that is checked in as part of the repo. Detailed information is available on the Trivy website but an example is as follows:
It is possible to define all options in the trivy.yaml file. Specifying individual options via the action are left for backward compatibility purposes. Defining the following is required as they cannot be defined with the config file:
scan-ref: If using fs, repo scans.
image-ref: If using image scan.
scan-type: To define the scan type, e.g. image, fs, repo, etc.
Order of preference for options
Trivy uses Viper which has a defined precedence order for options. The order is as follows:
GitHub Action flag
Environment variable
Config file
Default
Cache
The action has a built-in functionality for caching and restoring the vulnerability DB, the Java DB and the checks bundle if they are downloaded during the scan.
The cache is stored in the $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivy directory by default.
The cache is restored before the scan starts and saved after the scan finishes.
It uses actions/cache under the hood but requires less configuration settings.
The cache input is optional, and caching is turned on by default.
Disabling caching
If you want to disable caching, set the cache input to false, but we recommend keeping it enabled to avoid rate limiting issues.
- name: Run Trivy scanner without cache
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'fs'
scan-ref: '.'
cache: 'false'
Updating caches in the default branch
Please note that there are restrictions on cache access between branches in GitHub Actions.
By default, a workflow can access and restore a cache created in either the current branch or the default branch (usually main or master).
If you need to share caches across branches, you may need to create a cache in the default branch and restore it in the current branch.
To optimize your workflow, you can set up a cron job to regularly update the cache in the default branch.
This allows subsequent scans to use the cached DB without downloading it again.
# Note: This workflow only updates the cache. You should create a separate workflow for your actual Trivy scans.
# In your scan workflow, set TRIVY_SKIP_DB_UPDATE=true and TRIVY_SKIP_JAVA_DB_UPDATE=true.
name: Update Trivy Cache
on:
schedule:
- cron: '0 0 * * *' # Run daily at midnight UTC
workflow_dispatch: # Allow manual triggering
jobs:
update-trivy-db:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Setup oras
uses: oras-project/setup-oras@v1
- name: Get current date
id: date
run: echo "date=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
- name: Download and extract the vulnerability DB
run: |
mkdir -p $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivy/db
oras pull ghcr.io/aquasecurity/trivy-db:2
tar -xzf db.tar.gz -C $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivy/db
rm db.tar.gz
- name: Download and extract the Java DB
run: |
mkdir -p $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivy/java-db
oras pull ghcr.io/aquasecurity/trivy-java-db:1
tar -xzf javadb.tar.gz -C $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivy/java-db
rm javadb.tar.gz
- name: Cache DBs
uses: actions/cache/save@v4
with:
path: ${{ github.workspace }}/.cache/trivy
key: cache-trivy-${{ steps.date.outputs.date }}
When running a scan, set the environment variables TRIVY_SKIP_DB_UPDATE and TRIVY_SKIP_JAVA_DB_UPDATE to skip the download process.
- name: Run Trivy scanner without downloading DBs
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'image'
scan-ref: 'myimage'
env:
TRIVY_SKIP_DB_UPDATE: true
TRIVY_SKIP_JAVA_DB_UPDATE: true
Trivy Setup
By default the action calls aquasecurity/setup-trivy as the first step
which installs the trivy version specified by the version input. If you have already installed trivy by other
means, e.g. calling aquasecurity/setup-trivy directly, or are invoking this action multiple times then you can use the
skip-setup-trivy input to disable this step.
Skipping Setup when Calling Trivy Action multiple times
Another common use case is when a build calls this action multiple times, in this case we can set skip-setup-trivy to
true on subsequent invocations e.g.
name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
test:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
permissions:
contents: read
steps:
- name: Check out Git repository
uses: actions/checkout@v4
# The first call to the action will invoke setup-trivy and install trivy
- name: Generate Trivy Vulnerability Report
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: "fs"
output: trivy-report.json
format: json
scan-ref: .
exit-code: 0
- name: Upload Vulnerability Scan Results
uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
with:
name: trivy-report
path: trivy-report.json
retention-days: 30
- name: Fail build on High/Criticial Vulnerabilities
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: "fs"
format: table
scan-ref: .
severity: HIGH,CRITICAL
ignore-unfixed: true
exit-code: 1
# On a subsequent call to the action we know trivy is already installed so can skip this
skip-setup-trivy: true
Use non-default token to install Trivy
GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) uses an invalid github.token for https://github.com server.
Therefore, you can’t install Trivy using the setup-trivy action.
To fix this problem, you need to overwrite the token for setup-trivy using token-setup-trivy input:
- name: Run Trivy scanner without cache
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'fs'
scan-ref: '.'
token-setup-trivy: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_PAT }}
If you would like to upload SARIF results to GitHub Code scanning even upon a non zero exit code from Trivy Scan, you can add the following to your upload step:
name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
permissions:
contents: read # Required to checkout and read repo files
security-events: write # Required to upload SARIF files to Security tab
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Build an image from Dockerfile
run: |
docker build -t docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }} .
- name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
image-ref: 'docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }}'
format: 'sarif'
output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
- name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
if: always()
with:
sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'
It’s also possible to scan your git repos with Trivy’s built-in repo scan. This can be handy if you want to run Trivy as a build time check on each PR that gets opened in your repo. This helps you identify potential vulnerabilities that might get introduced with each PR.
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
permissions:
contents: read # Required to checkout and read repo files
security-events: write # Required to upload SARIF files to Security tab
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner in repo mode
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'fs'
ignore-unfixed: true
format: 'sarif'
output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
severity: 'CRITICAL'
- name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
with:
sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'
Using Trivy to scan your rootfs directories
It’s also possible to scan your rootfs directories with Trivy’s built-in rootfs scan. This can be handy if you want to run Trivy as a build time check on each PR that gets opened in your repo. This helps you identify potential vulnerabilities that might get introduced with each PR.
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
permissions:
contents: read # Required to checkout and read repo files
security-events: write # Required to upload SARIF files to Security tab
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner with rootfs command
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'rootfs'
scan-ref: 'rootfs-example-binary'
ignore-unfixed: true
format: 'sarif'
output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
severity: 'CRITICAL'
- name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
with:
sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'
Using Trivy to scan Infrastructure as Code
It’s also possible to scan your IaC repos with Trivy’s built-in repo scan.
This can be handy if you want to run Trivy as a build time check on each PR that gets opened in your repo.
This helps you identify potential vulnerabilities that might get introduced with each PR.
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
permissions:
contents: read # Required to checkout and read repo files
security-events: write # Required to upload SARIF files to Security tab
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner in IaC mode
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'config'
hide-progress: true
format: 'sarif'
output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
exit-code: '1'
severity: 'CRITICAL,HIGH'
- name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
if: always()
uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
with:
sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'
Note: If your Terraform configuration contains private modules, configure Git to authenticate with the repository hosting them.
This can be done by adding a step in your CI workflow that sets up access, for example using a Personal Access Token (PAT) or SSH keys:
---
name: Generate SBOM
on:
push:
branches:
- main
## GITHUB_TOKEN authentication, add only if you're not going to use a PAT
permissions:
contents: write
jobs:
generate-sbom:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run Trivy in GitHub SBOM mode and submit results to Dependency Graph
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
scan-type: 'fs'
format: 'github'
output: 'dependency-results.sbom.json'
scan-ref: '.'
github-pat: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # or ${{ secrets.github_pat_name }} if you're using a PAT
When scanning images you may want to parse the actual output JSON as Github Dependency doesn’t show all details like the file path of each dependency for instance.
You can upload the report as an artifact and download it, for instance using the upload-artifact action:
---
name: Generate SBOM
on:
push:
branches:
- main
## GITHUB_TOKEN authentication, add only if you're not going to use a PAT
permissions:
contents: write
jobs:
generate-sbom:
runs-on: ubuntu-latest
steps:
- name: Scan image in a private registry
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
image-ref: "private_image_registry/image_name:image_tag"
scan-type: image
format: 'github'
output: 'dependency-results.sbom.json'
github-pat: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }} # or ${{ secrets.github_pat_name }} if you're using a PAT
severity: "MEDIUM,HIGH,CRITICAL"
scanners: "vuln"
env:
TRIVY_USERNAME: "image_registry_admin_username"
TRIVY_PASSWORD: "image_registry_admin_password"
- name: Upload trivy report as a Github artifact
uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
with:
name: trivy-sbom-report
path: '${{ github.workspace }}/dependency-results.sbom.json'
retention-days: 20 # 90 is the default
Using Trivy to scan your private registry
It’s also possible to scan your private registry with Trivy’s built-in image scan. All you have to do is set ENV vars.
Docker Hub registry
Docker Hub needs TRIVY_USERNAME and TRIVY_PASSWORD.
You don’t need to set ENV vars when downloading from a public repository.
name: build
on:
push:
branches:
- main
pull_request:
jobs:
build:
name: Build
runs-on: ubuntu-24.04
permissions:
contents: read # Required to checkout and read repo files
security-events: write # Required to upload SARIF results to the GitHub Security tab
steps:
- name: Checkout code
uses: actions/checkout@v4
- name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner
uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@v0.36.0
with:
image-ref: 'docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }}'
format: 'sarif'
output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
env:
TRIVY_USERNAME: Username
TRIVY_PASSWORD: Password
- name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
with:
sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'
AWS ECR (Elastic Container Registry)
Trivy uses AWS SDK. You don’t need to install aws CLI tool.
You can use AWS CLI’s ENV Vars.
Exit code when specified vulnerabilities are found
ignore-unfixed
Boolean
false
Ignore unpatched/unfixed vulnerabilities
vuln-type
String
os,library
Vulnerability types (os,library)
severity
String
UNKNOWN,LOW,MEDIUM,HIGH,CRITICAL
Severities of vulnerabilities to scanned for and displayed
skip-dirs
String
Comma separated list of directories where traversal is skipped
skip-files
String
Comma separated list of files where traversal is skipped
cache-dir
String
$GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivy
Cache directory. NOTE: This value cannot be configured by trivy.yaml.
timeout
String
5m0s
Scan timeout duration
ignore-policy
String
Filter vulnerabilities with OPA rego language
hide-progress
String
false
Suppress progress bar and log output
list-all-pkgs
String
Output all packages regardless of vulnerability
scanners
String
vuln,secret
comma-separated list of what security issues to detect (vuln,secret,misconfig,license)
trivyignores
String
comma-separated list of relative paths within the repository to one or more .trivyignore files, or a single .trivyignore.yaml file.
trivy-config
String
Path to trivy.yaml config
github-pat
String
Authentication token to enable sending SBOM scan results to GitHub Dependency Graph. Can be either a GitHub Personal Access Token (PAT) or GITHUB_TOKEN
limit-severities-for-sarif
Boolean
false
By default SARIF format enforces output of all vulnerabilities regardless of configured severities. To override this behavior set this parameter to true
docker-host
String
By default it is set to unix://var/run/docker.sock, but can be updated to help with containerized infrastructure values (unix:/ or other prefix is required)
version
String
v0.75.0
Trivy version to use, e.g. latest or v0.75.0
skip-setup-trivy
Boolean
false
Skip calling the setup-trivy action to install trivy
token-setup-trivy
Boolean
Overwrite github.token used by setup-trivy to checkout the trivy repository
Environment variables
You can use Trivy environment variables to set the necessary options (including flags that are not supported by Inputs, such as --secret-config).
NB In some older versions of the Action there was a bug that caused inputs from one call to the Action to leak
over to subsequent calls to the Action. This could cause workflows that call the Action multiple times e.g. to run
multiple scans, or the same scans with different output formats, to not produce the desired output. You can see if this
is the case by looking at the GitHub Actions step information, if the env section shown in your Actions output
contains TRIVY_* environment variables you did not explicitly set then you may be affected by this bug and should
upgrade to the latest Action version.
Trivy config file
When using the trivy-configInput, you can set options using the Trivy config file (including flags that are not supported by Inputs, such as --secret-config).
Trivy Action
Table of Contents
Usage
Scan CI Pipeline
Scan CI Pipeline (w/ Trivy Config)
In this case
trivy.yamlis a YAML configuration that is checked in as part of the repo. Detailed information is available on the Trivy website but an example is as follows:It is possible to define all options in the
trivy.yamlfile. Specifying individual options via the action are left for backward compatibility purposes. Defining the following is required as they cannot be defined with the config file:scan-ref: If usingfs, reposcans.image-ref: If usingimagescan.scan-type: To define the scan type, e.g.image,fs,repo, etc.Order of preference for options
Trivy uses Viper which has a defined precedence order for options. The order is as follows:
Cache
The action has a built-in functionality for caching and restoring the vulnerability DB, the Java DB and the checks bundle if they are downloaded during the scan. The cache is stored in the
$GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivydirectory by default. The cache is restored before the scan starts and saved after the scan finishes.It uses actions/cache under the hood but requires less configuration settings. The cache input is optional, and caching is turned on by default.
Disabling caching
If you want to disable caching, set the
cacheinput tofalse, but we recommend keeping it enabled to avoid rate limiting issues.Updating caches in the default branch
Please note that there are restrictions on cache access between branches in GitHub Actions. By default, a workflow can access and restore a cache created in either the current branch or the default branch (usually
mainormaster). If you need to share caches across branches, you may need to create a cache in the default branch and restore it in the current branch.To optimize your workflow, you can set up a cron job to regularly update the cache in the default branch. This allows subsequent scans to use the cached DB without downloading it again.
When running a scan, set the environment variables
TRIVY_SKIP_DB_UPDATEandTRIVY_SKIP_JAVA_DB_UPDATEto skip the download process.Trivy Setup
By default the action calls
aquasecurity/setup-trivyas the first step which installs thetrivyversion specified by theversioninput. If you have already installedtrivyby other means, e.g. callingaquasecurity/setup-trivydirectly, or are invoking this action multiple times then you can use theskip-setup-trivyinput to disable this step.Setting up Trivy Manually
Skipping Setup when Calling Trivy Action multiple times
Another common use case is when a build calls this action multiple times, in this case we can set
skip-setup-trivytotrueon subsequent invocations e.g.Use non-default token to install Trivy
GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) uses an invalid
github.tokenforhttps://github.comserver. Therefore, you can’t installTrivyusing thesetup-trivyaction.To fix this problem, you need to overwrite the token for
setup-trivyusingtoken-setup-trivyinput:GitHub even has create-github-app-token for similar cases.
Scanning a Tarball
Using Trivy with templates
The action supports Trivy templates.
Use
templateinput to specify path (remember to prefix the path with@) to template file.Default templates
Trivy has default templates.
By default,
setup-trivyinstalls them into the$HOME/.local/bin/trivy-bin/contribdirectory.Using Trivy with GitHub Code Scanning
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
You can find a more in-depth example here: https://github.com/aquasecurity/trivy-sarif-demo/blob/master/.github/workflows/scan.yml
If you would like to upload SARIF results to GitHub Code scanning even upon a non zero exit code from Trivy Scan, you can add the following to your upload step:
See this for more details: https://docs.github.com/en/actions/learn-github-actions/expressions#always
Using Trivy to scan your Git repo
It’s also possible to scan your git repos with Trivy’s built-in repo scan. This can be handy if you want to run Trivy as a build time check on each PR that gets opened in your repo. This helps you identify potential vulnerabilities that might get introduced with each PR.
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
Using Trivy to scan your rootfs directories
It’s also possible to scan your rootfs directories with Trivy’s built-in rootfs scan. This can be handy if you want to run Trivy as a build time check on each PR that gets opened in your repo. This helps you identify potential vulnerabilities that might get introduced with each PR.
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
Using Trivy to scan Infrastructure as Code
It’s also possible to scan your IaC repos with Trivy’s built-in repo scan. This can be handy if you want to run Trivy as a build time check on each PR that gets opened in your repo. This helps you identify potential vulnerabilities that might get introduced with each PR.
If you have GitHub code scanning available you can use Trivy as a scanning tool as follows:
Note: If your Terraform configuration contains private modules, configure Git to authenticate with the repository hosting them. This can be done by adding a step in your CI workflow that sets up access, for example using a Personal Access Token (PAT) or SSH keys:
This ensures Trivy can download private modules.
Using Trivy to generate SBOM
It’s possible for Trivy to generate an SBOM of your dependencies and submit them to a consumer like GitHub Dependency Graph.
The sending of an SBOM to GitHub feature is only available if you currently have GitHub Dependency Graph enabled in your repo.
In order to send results to GitHub Dependency Graph, you will need to create a GitHub PAT or use the GitHub installation access token (also known as
GITHUB_TOKEN):When scanning images you may want to parse the actual output JSON as Github Dependency doesn’t show all details like the file path of each dependency for instance.
You can upload the report as an artifact and download it, for instance using the upload-artifact action:
Using Trivy to scan your private registry
It’s also possible to scan your private registry with Trivy’s built-in image scan. All you have to do is set ENV vars.
Docker Hub registry
Docker Hub needs
TRIVY_USERNAMEandTRIVY_PASSWORD. You don’t need to set ENV vars when downloading from a public repository.AWS ECR (Elastic Container Registry)
Trivy uses AWS SDK. You don’t need to install
awsCLI tool. You can use AWS CLI’s ENV Vars.GCR (Google Container Registry)
Trivy uses Google Cloud SDK. You don’t need to install
gcloudcommand.If you want to use target project’s repository, you can set it via
GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS.Self-Hosted
BasicAuth server needs
TRIVY_USERNAMEandTRIVY_PASSWORD. if you want to use 80 port, use NonSSLTRIVY_NON_SSL=trueUsing Trivy if you don’t have code scanning enabled
It’s also possible to browse a scan result in a workflow summary.
This step is especially useful for private repositories without GitHub Advanced Security license.
Customizing
Configuration priority:
inputs
Following inputs can be used as
step.withkeys:scan-typeimageimageorfsinputalpine-latest.tarimage-refalpine:3.10.2scan-ref/github/workspace//github/workspace/or.formattabletable,json,template,sarif,cyclonedx,spdx,spdx-json,github,cosign-vuln)template@$HOME/.local/bin/trivy-bin/contrib/gitlab.tpl,@$HOME/.local/bin/trivy-bin/contrib/junit.tpl)tf-varsoutputexit-code0ignore-unfixedvuln-typeos,libraryseverityUNKNOWN,LOW,MEDIUM,HIGH,CRITICALskip-dirsskip-filescache-dir$GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.cache/trivytrivy.yaml.timeout5m0signore-policyhide-progressfalselist-all-pkgsscannersvuln,secretvuln,secret,misconfig,license)trivyignores.trivyignorefiles, or a single.trivyignore.yamlfile.trivy-configgithub-patlimit-severities-for-sarifdocker-hostunix://var/run/docker.sock, but can be updated to help with containerized infrastructure values (unix:/or other prefix is required)versionv0.75.0latestorv0.75.0skip-setup-trivysetup-trivyaction to installtrivytoken-setup-trivygithub.tokenused bysetup-trivyto checkout thetrivyrepositoryEnvironment variables
You can use Trivy environment variables to set the necessary options (including flags that are not supported by Inputs, such as
--secret-config).NB In some older versions of the Action there was a bug that caused inputs from one call to the Action to leak over to subsequent calls to the Action. This could cause workflows that call the Action multiple times e.g. to run multiple scans, or the same scans with different output formats, to not produce the desired output. You can see if this is the case by looking at the GitHub Actions step information, if the
envsection shown in your Actions output containsTRIVY_*environment variables you did not explicitly set then you may be affected by this bug and should upgrade to the latest Action version.Trivy config file
When using the
trivy-configInput, you can set options using the Trivy config file (including flags that are not supported by Inputs, such as--secret-config).