Cycode

Cycode CLI User Guide

The Cycode Command Line Interface (CLI) is an application you can install locally to scan your repositories for secrets, infrastructure as code misconfigurations, software composition analysis vulnerabilities, and static application security testing issues.

This guide walks you through both installation and usage.

Table of Contents

1. Prerequisites
2. Installation
   1. Install Cycode CLI
      1. Using the Auth Command
      2. Using the Configure Command
      3. Add to Environment Variables
         1. On Unix/Linux
         2. On Windows
   2. Install Pre-Commit Hook
3. Cycode CLI Commands
4. MCP Command
   1. Starting the MCP Server
   2. Available Options
   3. MCP Tools
   4. Usage Examples
5. Scan Command
   1. Running a Scan
      1. Options
         1. Severity Threshold
         2. Monitor
         3. Cycode Report
         4. Package Vulnerabilities
         5. License Compliance
         6. Lock Restore
      2. Repository Scan
         1. Branch Option
      3. Path Scan
         1. Terraform Plan Scan
      4. Commit History Scan
         1. Commit Range Option
      5. Pre-Commit Scan
   2. Scan Results
      1. Show/Hide Secrets
      2. Soft Fail
      3. Example Scan Results
         1. Secrets Result Example
         2. IaC Result Example
         3. SCA Result Example
         4. SAST Result Example
      4. Company Custom Remediation Guidelines
   3. Ignoring Scan Results
      1. Ignoring a Secret Value
      2. Ignoring a Secret SHA Value
      3. Ignoring a Path
      4. Ignoring a Secret, IaC, or SCA Rule
      5. Ignoring a Package
      6. Ignoring via a config file
6. Report command
   1. Generating SBOM Report
7. Scan logs
8. Syntax Help

Prerequisites

• The Cycode CLI application requires Python version 3.9 or later.
• Use the cycode auth command to authenticate to Cycode with the CLI
  • Alternatively, you can get a Cycode Client ID and Client Secret Key by following the steps detailed in the Service Account Token and Personal Access Token pages, which contain details on getting these values.

Installation

The following installation steps are applicable to both Windows and UNIX / Linux operating systems.

Install Cycode CLI

To install the Cycode CLI application on your local machine, perform the following steps:

1. Open your command line or terminal application.
2. Execute one of the following commands:
   • To install from PyPI:
     pip3 install cycode
   • To install from Homebrew:
     brew install cycode
   • To install from GitHub Releases navigate and download executable for your operating system and architecture, then run the following command:
   cd /path/to/downloaded/cycode-cli chmod +x cycode ./cycode
3. Finally authenticate the CLI. There are three methods to set the Cycode client ID and client secret:
   • cycode auth (Recommended)
   • cycode configure
   • Add them to your environment variables

Using the Auth Command

1. Type the following command into your terminal/command line window:cycode auth
2. A browser window will appear, asking you to log into Cycode (as seen below):
3. Enter your login credentials on this page and log in.
4. You will eventually be taken to the page below, where you'll be asked to choose the business group you want to authorize Cycode with (if applicable):

   Note

   This will be the default method for authenticating with the Cycode CLI.

5. Click the Allow button to authorize the Cycode CLI on the selected business group.
6. Once completed, you'll see the following screen if it was selected successfully:
7. In the terminal/command line screen, you will see the following when exiting the browser window:Successfully logged into cycode

Using the Configure Command

1. Type the following command into your terminal/command line window:
   cycode configure
2. Enter your Cycode API URL value (you can leave blank to use default value). Cycode API URL [https://api.cycode.com]: https://api.onpremise.com
3. Enter your Cycode APP URL value (you can leave blank to use default value). Cycode APP URL [https://app.cycode.com]: https://app.onpremise.com
4. Enter your Cycode Client ID value. Cycode Client ID []: 7fe5346b-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-55157625c72d
5. Enter your Cycode Client Secret value. Cycode Client Secret []: c1e24929-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-8b08c1839a2e
6. If the values were entered successfully, you'll see the following message: Successfully configured CLI credentials!or/and Successfully configured Cycode URLs!

If you go into the .cycode folder under your user folder, you'll find these credentials were created and placed in the credentials.yaml file in that folder. The URLs were placed in the config.yaml file in that folder.

Add to Environment Variables

On Unix/Linux:

and

On Windows

1. From the Control Panel, navigate to the System menu:
2. Next, click Advanced system settings:
3. In the System Properties window that opens, click the Environment Variables button:
4. Create CYCODE_CLIENT_ID and CYCODE_CLIENT_SECRET variables with values matching your ID and Secret Key, respectively:
5. Insert the cycode.exe into the path to complete the installation.

Install Pre-Commit Hook

Cycode’s pre-commit hook can be set up within your local repository so that the Cycode CLI application will identify any issues with your code automatically before you commit it to your codebase.

Perform the following steps to install the pre-commit hook:

1. Install the pre-commit framework (Python 3.9 or higher must be installed):
   pip3 install pre-commit
2. Navigate to the top directory of the local Git repository you wish to configure.
3. Create a new YAML file named .pre-commit-config.yaml (include the beginning .) in the repository’s top directory that contains the following:
   repos: - repo: https://github.com/cycodehq/cycode-cli rev: v3.2.0 hooks: - id: cycode stages: - pre-commit
4. Modify the created file for your specific needs. Use hook ID cycode to enable scan for Secrets. Use hook ID cycode-sca to enable SCA scan. Use hook ID cycode-sast to enable SAST scan. If you want to enable all scanning types, use this configuration:
   repos: - repo: https://github.com/cycodehq/cycode-cli rev: v3.2.0 hooks: - id: cycode stages: - pre-commit - id: cycode-sca stages: - pre-commit - id: cycode-sast stages: - pre-commit
5. Install Cycode’s hook:
   pre-commit install
   A successful hook installation will result in the message: Pre-commit installed at .git/hooks/pre-commit.
6. Keep the pre-commit hook up to date:
   pre-commit autoupdate
   It will automatically bump rev in .pre-commit-config.yaml to the latest available version of Cycode CLI.

Cycode CLI Commands

The following are the options and commands available with the Cycode CLI application:

MCP Command [EXPERIMENT]

The Model Context Protocol (MCP) command allows you to start an MCP server that exposes Cycode's scanning capabilities to AI systems and applications. This enables AI models to interact with Cycode CLI tools via a standardized protocol.

Starting the MCP Server

To start the MCP server, use the following command:

By default, this starts the server using the stdio transport, which is suitable for local integrations and AI applications that can spawn subprocesses.

Available Options

MCP Tools

The MCP server provides the following tools that AI systems can use:

Usage Examples

Basic Command Examples

Start the MCP server with default settings (stdio transport):

Start the MCP server with explicit stdio transport:

Start the MCP server with Server-Sent Events (SSE) transport:

Start the MCP server with streamable HTTP transport on custom host and port:

Learn more about MCP Transport types in the MCP Protocol Specification – Transports.

Configuration Examples

Using MCP with Cursor/VS Code/Claude Desktop/etc (mcp.json)

Follow this guide to configure the MCP server in your VS Code/GitHub Copilot. Keep in mind that in settings.json, there is an mcp object containing a nested servers sub-object, rather than a standalone mcpServers object.

For stdio transport (direct execution):

For stdio transport with pipx installation:

For stdio transport with uvx installation:

For SSE transport (Server-Sent Events):

For SSE transport on custom port:

For streamable HTTP transport:

Running MCP Server in Background

For SSE transport (start server first, then configure client):

For streamable HTTP transport:

Troubleshooting MCP

If you encounter issues with the MCP server, you can enable debug logging to get more detailed information about what's happening. There are two ways to enable debug logging:

1. Using the -v or --verbose flag:

2. Using the CYCODE_CLI_VERBOSE environment variable:

The debug logs will show detailed information about:

• Server startup and configuration
• Connection attempts and status
• Tool execution and results
• Any errors or warnings that occur

This information can be helpful when:

• Diagnosing connection issues
• Understanding why certain tools aren't working
• Identifying authentication problems
• Debugging transport-specific issues

Scan Command

Running a Scan

The Cycode CLI application offers several types of scans so that you can choose the option that best fits your case. The following are the current options and commands available:

Options

Severity Option

To limit the results of the scan to a specific severity threshold, the argument --severity-threshold can be added to the scan command.

For example, the following command will scan the repository for policy violations that have severity of Medium or higher:

cycode scan --severity-threshold MEDIUM repository ~/home/git/codebase

Monitor Option

To push scan results tied to the SCA policies found in an SCA type scan to Cycode, add the argument --monitor to the scan command.

For example, the following command will scan the repository for SCA policy violations and push them to Cycode platform:

cycode scan -t sca --monitor repository ~/home/git/codebase

Cycode Report Option

For every scan performed using the Cycode CLI, a report is automatically generated and its results are sent to Cycode. These results are tied to the relevant policies (e.g., SCA policies for Repository scans) within the Cycode platform.

To have the direct URL to this Cycode report printed in your CLI output after the scan completes, add the argument --cycode-report to your scan command.

cycode scan --cycode-report repository ~/home/git/codebase

All scan results from the CLI will appear in the CLI Logs section of Cycode. If you included the --cycode-report flag in your command, a direct link to the specific report will be displayed in your terminal following the scan results.

The report page will look something like below:

Package Vulnerabilities Option

To scan a specific package vulnerability of your local repository, add the argument --sca-scan package-vulnerabilities following the -t sca or --scan-type sca option.

In the previous example, if you wanted to only run an SCA scan on package vulnerabilities, you could execute the following:

cycode scan -t sca --sca-scan package-vulnerabilities repository ~/home/git/codebase

License Compliance Option

To scan a specific branch of your local repository, add the argument --sca-scan license-compliance followed by the name of the branch you wish to scan.

In the previous example, if you wanted to only scan a branch named dev, you could execute the following:

cycode scan -t sca --sca-scan license-compliance repository ~/home/git/codebase -b dev

Lock Restore Option

We use the sbt-dependency-lock plugin to restore the lock file for SBT projects. To disable lock restore in use --no-restore option.

Prerequisites:

• sbt-dependency-lock plugin: Install the plugin by adding the following line to project/plugins.sbt:
  addSbtPlugin("software.purpledragon" % "sbt-dependency-lock" % "1.5.1")

Repository Scan

A repository scan examines an entire local repository for any exposed secrets or insecure misconfigurations. This more holistic scan type looks at everything: the current state of your repository and its commit history. It will look not only for secrets that are currently exposed within the repository but previously deleted secrets as well.

To execute a full repository scan, execute the following:

cycode scan repository {{path}}

For example, if you wanted to scan a repository stored in ~/home/git/codebase, you could execute the following:

cycode scan repository ~/home/git/codebase

The following option is available for use with this command:

Branch Option

To scan a specific branch of your local repository, add the argument -b (alternatively, --branch) followed by the name of the branch you wish to scan.

Given the previous example, if you wanted to only scan a branch named dev, you could execute the following:

cycode scan repository ~/home/git/codebase -b dev

Path Scan

A path scan examines a specific local directory and all the contents within it, instead of focusing solely on a GIT repository.

To execute a directory scan, execute the following:

cycode scan path {{path}}

For example, consider a scenario in which you want to scan the directory located at ~/home/git/codebase. You could then execute the following:

cycode scan path ~/home/git/codebase

Terraform Plan Scan

Cycode CLI supports Terraform plan scanning (supporting Terraform 0.12 and later)

Terraform plan file must be in JSON format (having .json extension)

If you just have a configuration file, you can generate a plan by doing the following:

1. Initialize a working directory that contains Terraform configuration file: terraform init
2. Create Terraform execution plan and save the binary output: terraform plan -out={tfplan_output}
3. Convert the binary output file into readable JSON: terraform show -json {tfplan_output} > {tfplan}.json
4. Scan your {tfplan}.json with Cycode CLI: cycode scan -t iac path ~/PATH/TO/YOUR/{tfplan}.json

Commit History Scan

A commit history scan is limited to a local repository’s previous commits, focused on finding any secrets within the commit history, instead of examining the repository’s current state.

To execute a commit history scan, execute the following:

cycode scan commit-history {{path}}

For example, consider a scenario in which you want to scan the commit history for a repository stored in ~/home/git/codebase. You could then execute the following:

cycode scan commit-history ~/home/git/codebase

The following options are available for use with this command:

Commit Range Option

The commit history scan, by default, examines the repository’s entire commit history, all the way back to the initial commit. You can instead limit the scan to a specific commit range by adding the argument --commit-range (-r) followed by the name you specify.

Consider the previous example. If you wanted to scan only specific commits in your repository, you could execute the following:

cycode scan commit-history -r {{from-commit-id}}...{{to-commit-id}} ~/home/git/codebase

Pre-Commit Scan

A pre-commit scan automatically identifies any issues before you commit changes to your repository. There is no need to manually execute this scan; configure the pre-commit hook as detailed under the Installation section of this guide.

After installing the pre-commit hook, you may occasionally wish to skip scanning during a specific commit. To do this, add the following to your git command to skip scanning for a single commit:

Scan Results

Each scan will complete with a message stating if any issues were found or not.

If no issues are found, the scan ends with the following success message:

Good job! No issues were found!!! 👏👏👏

If an issue is found, a violation card appears upon completion instead. In this case you should review the file in question for the specific line highlighted by the result message. Implement any changes required to resolve the issue, then execute the scan again.

Show/Hide Secrets

In the examples below, a secret was found in the file secret_test, located in the subfolder cli. The second part of the message shows the specific line the secret appears in, which in this case is a value assigned to googleApiKey.

Note how the example obscures the actual secret value, replacing most of the secret with asterisks. Scans obscure secrets by default, but you may optionally disable this feature to view the full secret (assuming the machine you are viewing the scan result on is sufficiently secure from prying eyes).

To disable secret obfuscation, add the --show-secret argument to any type of scan.

In the following example, a Path Scan is executed against the cli subdirectory with the option enabled to display any secrets found in full:

cycode scan --show-secret path ./cli

The result would then not be obfuscated.

Soft Fail

In normal operation the CLI will return an exit code of 1 when issues are found in the scan results. Depending on your CI/CD setup this will usually result in an overall failure. If you don't want this to happen, you can use the soft fail feature.

By adding the --soft-fail option to any type of scan, the exit code will be forced to 0 regardless of whether any results are found.

Example Scan Results

Secrets Result Example

IaC Result Example

SCA Result Example

SAST Result Example

Company Custom Remediation Guidelines

If your company has set custom remediation guidelines in the relevant policy via the Cycode portal, you'll see a field for “Company Guidelines” that contains the remediation guidelines you added. Note that if you haven't added any company guidelines, this field will not appear in the CLI tool.

Ignoring Scan Results

Ignore rules can be added to ignore specific secret values, specific SHA512 values, specific paths, and specific Cycode secret and IaC rule IDs. This will cause the scan to not alert these values. The ignoring rules are written and saved locally in the ./.cycode/config.yaml file.

The following are the options available for the cycode ignore command:

Ignoring a Secret Value

To ignore a specific secret value, you will need to use the --by-value flag. This will ignore the given secret value from all future scans. Use the following command to add a secret value to be ignored:

cycode ignore --by-value {{secret-value}}

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore a specific secret value is as follows:

cycode ignore --by-value h3110w0r1d!@#$350

In the example above, replace the h3110w0r1d!@#$350 value with your non-masked secret value. See the Cycode scan options for details on how to see secret values in the scan results.

Ignoring a Secret SHA Value

To ignore a specific secret SHA value, you will need to use the --by-sha flag. This will ignore the given secret SHA value from all future scans. Use the following command to add a secret SHA value to be ignored:

cycode ignore --by-sha {{secret-sha-value}}

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore a specific secret SHA value is as follows:

cycode ignore --by-sha a44081db3296c84b82d12a35c446a3cba19411dddfa0380134c75f7b3973bff0

In the example above, replace the a44081db3296c84b82d12a35c446a3cba19411dddfa0380134c75f7b3973bff0 value with your secret SHA value.

Ignoring a Path

To ignore a specific path for either secret, IaC, or SCA scans, you will need to use the --by-path flag in conjunction with the -t, --scan-type flag (you must specify the scan type). This will ignore the given path from all future scans for the given scan type. Use the following command to add a path to be ignored:

cycode ignore -t {{scan-type}} --by-path {{path}}

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore a specific path for a secret is as follows:

cycode ignore -t secret --by-path ~/home/my-repo/config

In the example above, replace the ~/home/my-repo/config value with your path value.

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore a specific path from IaC scans is as follows:

cycode ignore -t iac --by-path ~/home/my-repo/config

In the example above, replace the ~/home/my-repo/config value with your path value.

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore a specific path from SCA scans is as follows:

cycode ignore -t sca --by-path ~/home/my-repo/config

In the example above, replace the ~/home/my-repo/config value with your path value.

Ignoring a Secret, IaC, SCA, or SAST Rule

To ignore a specific secret, IaC, SCA, or SAST rule, you will need to use the --by-rule flag in conjunction with the -t, --scan-type flag (you must specify the scan type). This will ignore the given rule ID value from all future scans. Use the following command to add a rule ID value to be ignored:

cycode ignore -t {{scan-type}} --by-rule {{rule-ID}}

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore the specific secret rule ID is as follows:

cycode ignore -t secret --by-rule ce3a4de0-9dfc-448b-a004-c538cf8b4710

In the example above, replace the ce3a4de0-9dfc-448b-a004-c538cf8b4710 value with the rule ID you want to ignore.

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore the specific IaC rule ID is as follows:

cycode ignore -t iac --by-rule bdaa88e2-5e7c-46ff-ac2a-29721418c59c

In the example above, replace the bdaa88e2-5e7c-46ff-ac2a-29721418c59c value with the rule ID you want to ignore.

In the example at the top of this section, the command to ignore the specific SCA rule ID is as follows:

cycode ignore -t sca --by-rule dc21bc6b-9f4f-46fb-9f92-e4327ea03f6b

In the example above, replace the dc21bc6b-9f4f-46fb-9f92-e4327ea03f6b value with the rule ID you want to ignore.

Ignoring a Package

To ignore a specific package in the SCA scans, you will need to use the --by-package flag in conjunction with the -t, --scan-type flag (you must specify the sca scan type). This will ignore the given package, using the {{package_name}}@{{package_version}} formatting, from all future scans. Use the following command to add a package and version to be ignored:

cycode ignore --scan-type sca --by-package {{package_name}}@{{package_version}}

OR

cycode ignore -t sca --by-package {{package_name}}@{{package_version}}

In the example below, the command to ignore a specific SCA package is as follows:

cycode ignore --scan-type sca --by-package pyyaml@5.3.1

In the example above, replace pyyaml with package name and 5.3.1 with the package version you want to ignore.

Ignoring via a config file

The applied ignoring rules are stored in the configuration file called config.yaml. This file could be easily shared between developers or even committed to remote Git. These files are always located in the .cycode folder. The folder starts with a dot (.), and you should enable the displaying of hidden files to see it.

Path of the config files

By default, all cycode ignore commands save the ignoring rule to the current directory from which CLI has been run.

Example: running ignoring CLI command from /Users/name/projects/backend will create config.yaml in /Users/name/projects/backend/.cycode

The second option is to save ignoring rules to the global configuration files. The path of the global config is ~/.cycode/config.yaml, where ~ means user`s home directory, for example, /Users/name on macOS.

Saving to the global space could be performed with the -g flag of the cycode ignore command. For example: cycode ignore -g --by-value test-value.

Proper working directory

It is incredibly important to place the .cycode folder and run CLI from the same place. You should double-check it when working with different environments like CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Jenkins, etc.).

You can commit the .cycode folder to the root of your repository. In this scenario, you must run CLI scans from the repository root. If that doesn't fit your requirements, you could temporarily copy the .cycode folder to wherever you want and perform a CLI scan from this folder.

Structure ignoring rules in the config

It's important to understand how CLI stores ignored rules to be able to read these configuration files or even modify them without CLI.

The abstract YAML structure:

Possible values of scanTypeName: iac, sca, sast, secret.

Possible values of ignoringType: paths, values, rules, packages, shas, cves.

Example of real config.yaml:

Report Command

Generating SBOM Report

A software bill of materials (SBOM) is an inventory of all constituent components and software dependencies involved in the development and delivery of an application. Using this command, you can create an SBOM report for your local project or for your repository URI.

The following options are available for use with this command:

The following commands are available for use with this command:

Repository

To create an SBOM report for a repository URI:
cycode report sbom --format <sbom format> --include-vulnerabilities --include-dev-dependencies --output-file </path/to/file> repository_url <repository url>

For example:
cycode report sbom --format spdx-2.3 --include-vulnerabilities --include-dev-dependencies repository_url https://github.com/cycodehq/cycode-cli.git

Local Project

To create an SBOM report for a path:
cycode report sbom --format <sbom format> --include-vulnerabilities --include-dev-dependencies --output-file </path/to/file> path </path/to/project>

For example:
cycode report sbom --format spdx-2.3 --include-vulnerabilities --include-dev-dependencies path /path/to/local/project

Scan Logs

All CLI scans are logged in Cycode. The logs can be found under Settings > CLI Logs.

Syntax Help

You may add the --help argument to any command at any time to see a help message that will display available options and their syntax.

To see general help, simply enter the command:

cycode --help

To see scan options, enter:

cycode scan --help

To see the options available for a specific type of scan, enter:

cycode scan {{option}} --help

For example, to see options available for a Path Scan, you would enter:

cycode scan path --help

To see the options available for the ignore scan function, use this command:

cycode ignore --help

To see the options available for a report, use this command:

cycode report --help

To see the options available for a specific type of report, enter:

cycode scan {{option}} --help