Snyk Orb for CircleCI

The Snyk Orb

Use the Snyk orb to easily incorporate Snyk into your CircleCI Workflows. By utilizing this orb in your project workflow, it is possible to use Snyk to test, fix and monitor your project for vulnerabilities in the app dependencies and Docker images, all with a single command. You can set thresholds for vulnerability tolerance in your app or Docker image (and fail the workflows when threshold is exceeded), apply proprietary Snyk patches, and save dependency snapshots on snyk.io for continuous monitoring and alerting.

How to use the Snyk Orb

In fact, it is very easy to start using the Orb. All you need to do is:

1. Follow the instructions at the Orb Quick Start Guide to enable usage of Orbs in your project workflow
2. Set up an environment variable (SNYK_TOKEN) with your Snyk API token, which you can get from your account in your Snyk instance
   • Optionally, you can set your API endpoint with SNYK_API if it differs from the default (https://snyk.io/)
3. In the app build job, call the snyk/scan
4. Optionally, supply parameters to customize orb behaviour

Usage Examples

Scan App Dependencies

version: 2.1

orbs:
  snyk: snyk/snyk@x.y.z

jobs:
  build:
    docker:
      - image: circleci/node:4.8.2
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run: npm install -q
      - snyk/scan

Scan Docker Image

version: 2.1

orbs:
  snyk: snyk/snyk@x.y.z

jobs:
  build:
    environment:
      IMAGE_NAME: myrepo/myapp
    docker:
      - image: circleci/buildpack-deps:stretch
    steps:
      - checkout
      - setup_remote_docker
      - run:
          name: Build Docker image
          command: docker build -t $IMAGE_NAME:latest .
      - snyk/scan:
          token-variable: SNYK_TOKEN
          docker-image-name: $IMAGE_NAME:latest
          target-file: "Dockerfile"

Advanced Example

version: 2.1

orbs:
  snyk: snyk/snyk@x.y.z

jobs:
  build:
    docker:
      - image: circleci/node:4.8.2
    steps:
      - checkout
      - run:
          command: npm install -q
      - snyk/scan:
          token-variable: CICD_SNYK_TOKEN                           # use is api token stored in an env variable named other than SNYK_TOKEN
          severity-threshold: high                                  # only fail if detected high-severity vulnerabilities
          fail-on-issues: false                                     # don't fail even if issues detected (not recommended!)
          monitor-on-build: true                                    # create a snapshot of apps dependencies on snyk.io, for continoues monitoring (recommended!)
          project: ${CIRCLE_PROJECT_REPONAME}/${CIRCLE_BRANCH}-app  # use this to save the snapshot under specific names.
          organization: ${SNYK_CICD_ORGANIZATION}                   # save reports under a specific Snyk organization
          no-output-timeout: 20m                                    # set timeout without output to 20 mins

Orb Parameters

Full reference docs https://circleci.com/orbs/registry/orb/snyk/snyk

Parameter	Description	Required	Default	Type
command	The CLI command (i.e. "test", "iac test") to execute	no	test	string
monitor-command	The CLI monitor command (i.e. "monitor", "container monitor") to execute	no	monitor	string
token-variable	Name of env var containing your Snyk API token	no	SNYK_TOKEN	env_var_name
severity-threshold	Only report vulnerabilities of provided level or higher (low/medium/high/critical)	no	low	low | med | high | critical
fail-on-issues	This specifies if builds should be failed or continued based on issues found by Snyk	no	true	boolean
monitor-on-build	Take a current application dependencies snapshot for continuous monitoring by Snyk, if test was succesful	no	true	boolean
target-file	The path to the manifest file to be used by Snyk. Should be provided if non-standard	no	-	string
docker-image-name	The image name, if scanning a container image	no	-	string
organization	The Snyk Organization ID (see Organization-level Settings tab in the Snyk UI) under which this project should be tested and monitored.	no	-	string
project	A custom name for the Snyk project to be created on snyk.io	no	-	string
additional-arguments	Refer to the Snyk CLI help page for information on additional arguments. These are passed to all snyk commands.	no	-	string
additional-test-arguments	Refer to the Snyk CLI help page for information on additional arguments. Theseq are passed to snyk test.	no	-	string
additional-monitor-arguments	Refer to the Snyk CLI help page for information on additional arguments. These are passed to snyk monitor.	no	-	string
os	The CLI OS version to download	no	linux	linux | linux-arm64 | macos | alpine
install-alpine-dependencies	For the alpine CLI, should extenral dependencies be installed	no	true	boolean
no-output-timeout	Elapsed time the command can run without output. The default is 10 minutes	no	10m	string
no-cache	Disable caching the Snyk CLI	no	false	boolean

Screenshots

Snyk found high-severity vulnerabilies in app and failed the workflow

Continuous Monitoring on snyk.io

Issues Report

Dependency Tree

Contributing

To ensure the long-term stability and quality of this project, we are moving to a closed-contribution model effective August 2025. This change allows our core team to focus on a centralized development roadmap and rigorous quality assurance, which is essential for a component with such extensive usage.

All of our development will remain public for transparency. We thank the community for its support and valuable contributions.

Getting Support

GitHub issues have been disabled on this repository as part of our move to a closed-contribution model. The Snyk support team does not actively monitor GitHub issues on any Snyk development project.

For help with Snyk products, please use the Snyk support page, which is the fastest way to get assistance.