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ggshield: protect your code with GitGuardian

ggshield is a CLI application that runs in your local environment or in a CI environment to help you detect more than 400+ types of secrets, as well as other potential security vulnerabilities or policy breaks affecting your codebase.

ggshield uses our public API through py-gitguardian to scan and detect potential vulnerabilities in files and other text content.

Only metadata such as call time, request size and scan mode is stored from scans using ggshield, therefore secrets and policy breaks incidents will not be displayed on your dashboard and your files and secrets won't be stored.

Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Requirements
  • macOS
    • Homebrew
    • Standalone .pkg package
  • Linux
    • Deb and RPM packages
  • Windows
    • Standalone .zip archive
  • All operating systems
    • Using pipx
    • Using pip
• Initial setup
  • Using ggshield auth login
  • Manual setup
• Getting started
  • Secrets
  • Infra as Code Security (IaC)
• Integrations
• Learn more
• Output
• Related open source projects
• License

Installation

Requirements

ggshield works on macOS, Linux and Windows.

It requires Python 3.8 and newer (except for standalone packages) and git.

Some commands require additional programs:

• docker: to scan docker images.
• pip: to scan pypi packages.

macOS

Homebrew

You can install ggshield using Homebrew:

$ brew install gitguardian/tap/ggshield

Upgrading is handled by Homebrew.

Standalone .pkg package

Alternatively, you can download and install a standalone .pkg package from ggshield release page.

This package does not require installing Python, but you have to manually download new versions.

Linux

Deb and RPM packages

Deb and RPM packages are available on Cloudsmith.

Setup instructions:

• Deb packages
• RPM packages

Upgrading is handled by the package manager.

Windows

Standalone .zip archive

We provide a standalone .zip archive on ggshield release page.

Unpack the archive on your disk, then add the directory containing the ggshield.exe file to %PATH%.

This archive does not require installing Python, but you have to manually download new versions.

All operating systems

ggshield can be installed on all supported operating systems via its PyPI package.

Using pipx

The recommended way to install ggshield from PyPI is to use pipx, which will install it in an isolated environment:

$ pipx install ggshield

To upgrade your installation, run:

$ pipx upgrade ggshield

Using pip

You can also install ggshield from PyPI using pip, but this is not recommended because the installation is not isolated, so other applications or packages installed this way may affect your ggshield installation. This method will also not work if your Python installation is declared as externally managed (for example when using the system Python on operating systems like Debian 12):

$ pip install --user ggshield

To upgrade your installation, run:

$ pip install --user --upgrade ggshield

Initial setup

Using ggshield auth login

To use ggshield you need to authenticate against GitGuardian servers. To do so, use the ggshield auth login command. This command automates the provisioning of a personal access token and its configuration on the local workstation.

You can learn more about it from ggshield auth login documentation.

Manual setup

You can also create your personal access token manually and store it in the GITGUARDIAN_API_KEY environment variable to complete the setup.

Getting started

Secrets

You can now use ggshield to search for secrets:

• in files: ggshield secret scan path -r .
• in repositories: ggshield secret scan repo .
• in Docker images: ggshield secret scan docker ubuntu:22.04
• in Pypi packages: ggshield secret scan pypi flask
• and more, have a look at ggshield secret scan --help output for details.

Infra as Code Security (IaC)

You can also search for vulnerabilities in your IaC files using the following command:

ggshield iac scan all .

However, if you are only interested in new potential IaC vulnerabilities, you can run:

ggshield iac scan diff --ref=HEAD~1 .

Have a look at ggshield iac scan --help for more details.

Integrations

You can integrate ggshield in your CI/CD workflow.

To catch errors earlier, use ggshield as a pre-commit, pre-push or pre-receive Git hook.

Learn more

For more information, have a look at the documentation

Output

If no secrets or policy breaks have been found, the exit code will be 0:

$ ggshield secret scan pre-commit

If a secret or other issue is found in your staged code or in your CI, you will have an alert giving you the type of policy break, the filename where the policy break has been found and a patch giving you the position of the policy break in the file:

$ ggshield secret scan pre-commit

🛡️  ⚔️  🛡️  2 policy breaks have been found in file production.rb

11 | config.paperclip_defaults = {
12 |     :s3_credentials => {
13 |     :bucket => "XXX",
14 |     :access_key_id => "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX",
                            |_____AWS Keys_____|

15 |     :secret_access_key => "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"
                                |_______________AWS Keys_______________|

16 |     }
17 | }

Lines that are too long are truncated to match the size of the terminal, unless the verbose mode is used (-v or --verbose).

Related open source projects

• truffleHog
• gitleaks
• gitrob
• git-hound
• AWS git-secrets
• detect-secrets

License

ggshield is MIT licensed.