Datadog Static Analyzer

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Datadog supports open source projects. Learn more on Datadog for Open Source Projects.

datadog-static-analyzer is the static analyzer engine for Datadog static analysis.

How to use Datadog Static Analysis Tool

Quick Start

1. Download the binary from the releases
2. Run the analyzer on your repository (as shown below)
3. It will run the analyzer with the default rules available for the support languages

datadog-static-analyzer --directory /path/to/directory --output report.csv --format csv

If you encounter an issue, read the Frequently Asked Questions first, it may contain the solution to your problem.

Advanced Usage

You can choose the rules to use to scan your repository by creating a static-analysis.datadog.yml file.

First, make sure you follow the documentation and create a static-analysis.datadog.yml file at the root of your project with the rulesets you want to use.

All the rules can be found on the Datadog documentation. Your static-analysis.datadog.yml may only contain rulesets available from the Datadog documentation

Example of YAML file

schema-version: v1
rulesets:
  - python-code-style
  - python-best-practices
  - python-inclusive
ignore:
  - tests

CI/CD Integration

You can use it in your CI/CD pipeline using our integration:

• GitHub Action
• CircleCI ORB

If you use it in your own CI/CD pipeline, you can integrate the tool directly: see the Datadog documentation for more information.

IntelliJ JetBrains products

The Datadog IntelliJ extension allows you to use the static analyzer directly from all JetBrains products. Create a static-analysis.datadog.yml file, download the extension and you can start using it. You can see below an example of a suggestion to add a timeout when fetching data with Python with the requests module.

VS Code

The Datadog VS Code extension allows you to use the static analyzer directly from VS Code. Create a static-analysis.datadog.yml file, download the extension and you can start using it.

List of rulesets

When you onboard on the Datadog product, you can select the ruleset you want/need. If you are not using Datadog directly, there is the list of common used rulesets available in the Datadog static analysis product per language.

The complete list is available in our documentation.

The list of rulesets is available in RULESETS.md.

Download

Download the latest release for your system and architecture from the release page.

To get the static analyzer via shell:

curl -L -O https://www.github.com/DataDog/datadog-static-analyzer/releases/latest/download/datadog-static-analyzer-<target>.zip

Example to get the x86_64 binary for Linux:

curl -L -O https://www.github.com/DataDog/datadog-static-analyzer/releases/latest/download/datadog-static-analyzer-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.zip

Usage

datadog-static-analyzer -i <directory> -o <output-file>

For the tool to work, you must have a <directory>/static-analysis.datadog.yml file that defines the configuration of the analyzer. This file will indicate the rules you will use for your project.

You can get more information about the configuration on Datadog documentation.

Mac OS X users

The binary cannot be executed as is. You need to flag the binary as safe to execute using the following command.

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine datadog-static-analyzer

Options

• -f or --format: format of the output file. -f sarif produces a SARIF-compliant file
• -r or --rules: provides a file that contains all rules (rules can be put in a file using datadog-export-rulesets)
• -c or --cpus: number of cores used to analyze (count about 1GB of RAM usage per core)
• -o or --output: output file
• -p or --ignore-path: path (pattern/glob) to ignore; accepts multiple
• -x or --performance-statistics: show performance statistics for the analyzer
• -g or --add-git-info: add Git-related information (sha, etc) into the SARIF report when using -f sarif
• --fail-on-any-violation: make the program exit a non-zero exit code if there is at least one violation of a given severity.
• -w or --diff-aware: enable diff-aware scanning (see dedicated notes below)

Configuration

Set the following variables to configure an analysis:

• DD_SITE: the Datadog site parameter used to fetch rules (view list) (default: datadoghq.com)

Configuration file

The static analyzer can be configured using a static-analysis.datadog.yml file at the root directory of the repository. This is a YAML file with the following entries:

• rulesets: (required) a list with all the rulesets to use for this repository (see Datadog Documentation for a full list). The elements of this list must be strings or maps containing a configuration for a ruleset (described below.)
• ignore: (optional) a list of path prefixes and glob patterns to ignore. A file that matches any of its entries will not be analyzed.
• only: (optional) a list of path prefixes and glob patterns to analyze. If only is specified, only files that match one of its entries will be analyzed.
• ignore-gitignore: (optional) by default, any entries found in the .gitignore file are added to the ignore list. If the ignore-gitignore option is true, the .gitignore file is not read.
• max-file-size-kb: (optional) files larger than this size, in kilobytes, will be ignored. The default value is 200 kB.
• schema-version: (optional) the version of the schema that this configuration file follows. If specified, it must be v1.

The entries of the rulesets list must be strings that contain the name of a ruleset to enable, or a map that contains the configuration for a ruleset. This map contains the following fields:

• the first field (required) gives the ruleset name as its key, with an empty value.
• ignore: (optional) a list of path prefixes and glob patterns to ignore for this ruleset. Rules in this ruleset will not be evaluated for any files that match any of the entries in the ignore list.
• only: (optional) a list of path prefixes and glob patterns to analyze for this ruleset. If only is specified, rules in this ruleset will only be evaluated for files that match one of the entries.
• rules: (optional) a map of rule configurations. Rules not specified in this map will still be evaluated, but with their default configuration.

The map in the rules field uses the rule's name as its key, and the values are maps with the following fields:

• ignore (optional) a list of path prefixes and glob patterns to ignore for this rule. This rule will not be evaluated for any files that match any of the entries in the ignore list.
• only: (optional) a list of path prefixes and glob patterns to analyze for this rule. If only is specified, this rule will only be evaluated for files that match one of the entries.
• severity: (optional) if provided, override the severity of violations produced by this rule. The valid severities are ERROR, WARNING, NOTICE, and NONE.
• category: (optional) if provided, override this rule's category. The valid categories are BEST_PRACTICES, CODE_STYLE, ERROR_PRONE, PERFORMANCE, and SECURITY.
• arguments: (optional) a map of values for the rule's arguments.

The map in the arguments field uses an argument's name as its key, and the values are either strings or maps:

• if you want to set a value for the whole repository, you can specify it as a string;
• if you want to set different values for different subtrees in the repository, you can specify them as a map from a subtree prefix to the value that the argument will have within that subtree. See the example for more details.

An annotated example of a configuration file:

# This is a "v1" configuration file.
schema-version: v1
# The list of rulesets to enable for this repository.
rulesets:
  # Enable the `python-inclusive` ruleset with the default configuration.
  - python-inclusive
  # Enable the `python-best-practices` ruleset with a custom configuration.
  - python-best-practices:
    # Do not apply any of the rules in this ruleset to files that match `src/**/*.generated.py`.
    ignore:
      - src/**/*.generated.py
    rules:
      # Special configuration for the `python-best-practices/no-generic-exception` rule.
      no-generic-exception:
        # Treat violations of this rule as errors (normally "notice").
        severity: ERROR
        # Classify violations of this rule under the "code style" category.
        category: CODE_STYLE
        # Only apply this rule to files under the `src/new-code` subtree.
        only:
          - src/new-code
  # Enable the `python-code-style ruleset` with a custom configuration.
  - python-code-style:
    rules:
      max-function-lines:
        # Set arguments for the `python-code-style/max-function-lines` rule.
        arguments:
          # Set the `max-lines` argument to 150 in the whole repository.
          max-lines: 150
      max-class-lines:
        # Set arguments for the `python-code-style/max-class-lines` rule.
        arguments:
          # Set different values for the `max-lines` argument in different subtrees.
          max-lines:
            # Set the `max-lines` argument to 100 by default
            /: 100
            # Set the `max-lines` argument to 75 under the `src/new-code` subtree.
            src/new-code: 75
# Analyze only files in the `src` and `imported` subtrees.
only:
  - src
  - imported
# Do not analyze any files in the `src/tests` subtree.
ignore:
  - src/tests
# Do not add the content of the `.gitignore` file to the `ignore` list.
ignore-gitignore: true
# Do not analyze files larger than 100 kB.
max-file-size-kb: 100

Another example that shows every option being used:

schema-version: v1
rulesets:
  - python-best-practices
  - python-code-style:
    ignore:
      - src/generated
      - src/**/*_test.py
    only:
      - src
      - imported/**/new/**
    rules:
      max-function-lines:
        severity: WARNING
        category: PERFORMANCE
        ignore:
          - src/new-code
          - src/new/*.gen.py
        only:
          - src/new
          - src/**/new-code/**
        arguments:
          max-lines: 150
          min-lines:
            /: 10
            src/new-code: 0
ignore:
  - dist
  - lib/**/*.py
only:
  - src
  - imported/**/*.py
ignore-gitignore: true
max-file-size-kb: 256

Configuration file schema

There is a JSON Schema definition for the static-analysis.datadog.yml in the schema subdirectory.

You can use it to check the syntax of your configuration file:

1. Install https://www.npmjs.com/package/pajv (npm install -g pajv)
2. Execute pajv validate -s schema/schema.json -d path/to/your/static-analysis.datadog.yml

There are some examples of valid and invalid configuration files in the schema/examples/valid and schema/examples/invalid subdirectories, respectively. If you make changes to the JSON Schema, you can test them against our examples:

1. Install https://www.npmjs.com/package/pajv (npm install -g pajv)
2. Execute make -C schema

Diff-Aware Scanning

Diff-aware scanning is a feature of the static-analyzer to only scan the files that have been recently changed. Diff-aware scans use previous results and add only the violations from the changed files.

In order to use diff-aware scanning, you must be a Datadog customer.

To use diff-aware scanning:

1. Set up the DD_SITE environment variable according to the Datadog datacenter you are using (https://docs.datadoghq.com/getting_started/site/)
2. Set up the DD_APP_KEY and DD_API_KEY environment variables with your Datadog application and API keys
3. Run the static analyzer with option --diff-aware

When using diff-aware, the static analyzer will connect to Datadog and attempt a previous analysis to use. If any problem occurs and diff-aware cannot be used, the analyzer will output an error like the one below.

You can use the option --debug true to troubleshoot further if needed.

$ datadog-static-analyzer --directory /path/to/code --output output.sarif --format sarif --diff-aware

...
diff aware not enabled (error when receiving diff-aware data from Datadog with config hash 16163d87d4a1922ab89ec891159446d1ce0fb47f9c1469448bb331b72d19f55c, sha 5509900dc490cedbe2bb64afaf43478e24ad144b), proceeding with full scan.
...

Other Tools

datadog-export-rulesets

Export rulesets from the API into a file

cargo run --bin datadog-export-rulesets -- -r <ruleset> -o <file-to-export>

More

• How diff-aware scanning works
• Report an issue
• OWASP Benchmark

Contribute

See file CONTRIBUTING.md for more information as well as DEVELOPMENT.md for all details about testing and coding guidelines.

More information

• Datadog Static Analysis