aquasecurity/trivy-action

Trivy Action

GitHub Action for Trivy

Table of Contents

• Usage
  • Scan CI Pipeline
  • Scan CI Pipeline (w/ Trivy Config)
  • Cache
  • Trivy Setup
  • Scanning a Tarball
  • Using Trivy with templates
  • Using Trivy with GitHub Code Scanning
  • Using Trivy to scan your Git repo
  • Using Trivy to scan your rootfs directories
  • Using Trivy to scan Infrastructure as Code
  • Using Trivy to generate SBOM
  • Using Trivy to scan your private registry
  • Using Trivy if you don't have code scanning enabled
• Customizing
  • inputs
  • Environment variables
  • Trivy config file

Usage

Scan CI Pipeline

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: Build an image from Dockerfile
        run: docker build -t docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }} .
      - name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        with:
          image-ref: 'docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }}'
          format: 'table'
          exit-code: '1'
          ignore-unfixed: true
          vuln-type: 'os,library'
          severity: 'CRITICAL,HIGH'

Scan CI Pipeline (w/ Trivy Config)

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/[email protected]
      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:

format: json
exit-code: 1
severity: CRITICAL
secret:
  config: config/trivy/secret.yaml

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/[email protected]
      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/[email protected]
      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.

Setting up Trivy Manually

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: Manual Trivy Setup
      uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
      with:
        cache: true
        version: v0.73.0

    - name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner in repo mode
      uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
      with:
        scan-type: 'fs'
        ignore-unfixed: true
        format: 'sarif'
        output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
        severity: 'CRITICAL'
        skip-setup-trivy: true

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/[email protected]
        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/[email protected]
        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/[email protected]
      with:
        scan-type: 'fs'
        scan-ref: '.'
        token-setup-trivy: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_PAT }}

GitHub even has create-github-app-token for similar cases.

Scanning a Tarball

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: Generate tarball from image
      run: |
        docker pull <your-docker-image>
        docker save -o vuln-image.tar <your-docker-image>

    - name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner in tarball mode
      uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
      with:
        input: /github/workspace/vuln-image.tar
        severity: 'CRITICAL,HIGH'

Using Trivy with templates

The action supports Trivy templates.

Use template input to specify path (remember to prefix the path with @) to template file.

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
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        with:
          scan-type: "fs"
          scan-ref: .
          format: 'template'
          template: "@path/to/my_template.tpl"

Default templates

Trivy has default templates.

By default, setup-trivy installs them into the $HOME/.local/bin/trivy-bin/contrib directory.

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
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        with:
          scan-type: "fs"
          scan-ref: .
          format: 'template'
          template: "@$HOME/.local/bin/trivy-bin/contrib/html.tpl"

Using Trivy with GitHub Code Scanning

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: Build an image from Dockerfile
        run: |
          docker build -t docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }} .

      - name: Run Trivy vulnerability scanner
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        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
        with:
          sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'

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:

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/[email protected]
        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'

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:

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/[email protected]
        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/[email protected]
        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/[email protected]
        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: Configure Git for private modules
  run: |
    git config --global url."https://$GITHUB_USER:[email protected]/".insteadOf "https://github.com/"
  env:
    GITHUB_USER: ${{ github.actor }}
    PRIVATE_REPO_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.PRIVATE_REPO_TOKEN }}

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):

---
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/[email protected]
        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/[email protected]
        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/[email protected]
        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.

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
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        with:
          image-ref: 'aws_account_id.dkr.ecr.region.amazonaws.com/imageName:${{ github.sha }}'
          format: 'sarif'
          output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
        env:
          AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: key_id
          AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: access_key
          AWS_DEFAULT_REGION: us-west-2

      - name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
        uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
        with:
          sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'

GCR (Google Container Registry)

Trivy uses Google Cloud SDK. You don't need to install gcloud command.

If you want to use target project's repository, you can set it via GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS.

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
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        with:
          image-ref: 'docker.io/my-organization/my-app:${{ github.sha }}'
          format: 'sarif'
          output: 'trivy-results.sarif'
        env:
          GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS: /path/to/credential.json

      - name: Upload Trivy scan results to GitHub Security tab
        uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
        with:
          sarif_file: 'trivy-results.sarif'

Self-Hosted

BasicAuth server needs TRIVY_USERNAME and TRIVY_PASSWORD. if you want to use 80 port, use NonSSL TRIVY_NON_SSL=true

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
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        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'

Using 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.

- name: Run Trivy scanner
  uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
  with:
    scan-type: config
    hide-progress: true
    output: trivy.txt

- name: Publish Trivy Output to Summary
  run: |
    if [[ -s trivy.txt ]]; then
      {
        echo "### Security Output"
        echo "<details><summary>Click to expand</summary>"
        echo ""
        echo '```terraform'
        cat trivy.txt
        echo '```'
        echo "</details>"
      } >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
    fi

Customizing

Configuration priority:

• Inputs
• Environment variables
• Trivy config file
• Default values

inputs

Following inputs can be used as step.with keys:

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-config Input, you can set options using the Trivy config file (including flags that are not supported by Inputs, such as --secret-config).