This content describes the most recent release of the CodeQL CLI. For more information about this release, see https://github.com/github/codeql-cli-binaries/releases.
To see details of the options available for this command in an earlier release, run the command with the --help
option in your terminal.
Synopsis
codeql query run (--database=<database> | --dataset=<dataset>) [--output=<file.bqrs>] [--threads=<num>] [--ram=<MB>] <options>... -- <file.ql>
codeql query run (--database=<database> | --dataset=<dataset>) [--output=<file.bqrs>] [--threads=<num>] [--ram=<MB>] <options>... -- <file.ql>
Description
Run a single query.
This command runs single query against a CodeQL database or raw QL dataset.
By default the result of the query will be displayed on the terminal in
a human-friendly rendering. If you want to do further processing of the
results, we strongly recommend using the --output
option to write the
results to a file in an intermediate binary format, which can then be
unpacked into various more machine-friendly representations by
codeql bqrs decode.
If your query produces results in a form that can be interpreted as source-code alerts, you may find codeql database analyze a more convenient way to run it. In particular, codeql database analyze can produce output in the SARIF format, which can be used with an variety of alert viewers.
To run multiple queries in parallel, see codeql database run-queries.
Primary options
<file.ql>
[Mandatory] QL source of the query to execute.
-o, --output=<file.bqrs>
A file where to output from the query will be written in BQRS format.
Options to select what to query
Exactly one of these options must be given.
-d, --database=<database>
Path to a CodeQL database to query.
--dataset=<dataset>
[Advanced] Path to a raw QL dataset to query.
Options to control the query evaluator
--[no-]tuple-counting
[Advanced] Display tuple counts for each evaluation step in the query
evaluator logs. If the --evaluator-log
option is provided, tuple
counts will be included in both the text-based and structured JSON logs
produced by the command. (This can be useful for performance
optimization of complex QL code).
--timeout=<seconds>
[Advanced] Set the timeout length for query evaluation, in seconds.
The timeout feature is intended to catch cases where a complex query would take "forever" to evaluate. It is not an effective way to limit the total amount of time the query evaluation can take. The evaluation will be allowed to continue as long as each separately timed part of the computation completes within the timeout. Currently these separately timed parts are "RA layers" of the optimized query, but that might change in the future.
If no timeout is specified, or is given as 0, no timeout will be set (except for codeql test run, where the default timeout is 5 minutes).
-j, --threads=<num>
Use this many threads to evaluate queries.
Defaults to 1. You can pass 0 to use one thread per core on the machine, or -N to leave N cores unused (except still use at least one thread).
--[no-]save-cache
[Advanced] Aggressively write intermediate results to the disk cache. This takes more time and uses (much) more disk space, but may speed up the subsequent execution of similar queries.
--[no-]expect-discarded-cache
[Advanced] Make decisions about which predicates to evaluate, and what to write to the disk cache, based on the assumption that the cache will be discarded after the queries have been executed.
--[no-]keep-full-cache
[Advanced] Don't clean up the disk cache after evaluation completes. This may save time if you're going to do codeql dataset cleanup or codeql database cleanup afterwards anyway.
--max-disk-cache=<MB>
Set the maximum amount of space that the disk cache for intermediate query results can use.
If this size is not configured explicitly, the evaluator will try to use a "reasonable" amount of cache space, based on the size of the dataset and the complexity of the queries. Explicitly setting a higher limit than this default usage will enable additional caching which can speed up later queries.
--min-disk-free=<MB>
[Advanced] Set target amount of free space on file system.
If --max-disk-cache
is not given, the evaluator will try hard to
curtail disk cache usage if the free space on the file system drops
below this value.
--min-disk-free-pct=<pct>
[Advanced] Set target fraction of free space on file system.
If --max-disk-cache
is not given, the evaluator will try hard to
curtail disk cache usage if the free space on the file system drops
below this percentage.
--external=<pred>=<file.csv>
A CSV file that contains rows for external predicate \--external
options can be supplied.
--xterm-progress=<mode>
[Advanced] Controls whether to show progress tracking during QL evaluation using xterm control sequences. Possible values are:
no
: Never produce fancy progress; assume a dumb terminal.
auto
(default): Autodetect whether the command is running in an
appropriate terminal.
yes
: Assume the terminal can understand xterm control sequences. The
feature still depends on being able to autodetect the size of the
terminal, and will also be disabled if -q
is given.
25x80
(or similar): Like yes
, and also explicitly give the size of
the terminal.
25x80:/dev/pts/17
(or similar): show fancy progress on a different
terminal than stderr. Mostly useful for internal testing.
Options for controlling outputting of structured evaluator logs
--evaluator-log=<file>
[Advanced] Output structured logs about evaluator performance to the
given file. The format of this log file is subject to change with no
notice, but will be a stream of JSON objects separated by either two
newline characters (by default) or one if the --evaluator-log-minify
option is passed. Please use codeql generate log-summary <file>
to
produce a more stable summary of this file, and avoid parsing the file
directly. The file will be overwritten if it already exists.
--evaluator-log-minify
[Advanced] If the --evaluator-log
option is passed, also passing
this option will minimize the size of the JSON log produced, at the
expense of making it much less human readable.
Options to control RAM usage
-M, --ram=<MB>
Set total amount of RAM the query evaluator should be allowed to use.
Options to control QL compilation
--warnings=<mode>
How to handle warnings from the QL compiler. One of:
hide
: Suppress warnings.
show
(default): Print warnings but continue with compilation.
error
: Treat warnings as errors.
--no-debug-info
Don't emit source location info in RA for debugging.
--[no-]fast-compilation
[Deprecated] [Advanced] Omit particularly slow optimization steps.
--no-release-compatibility
[Advanced] Use the newest compiler features, at the cost of portability.
From time to time, new QL language features and evaluator optimizations will be supported by the QL evaluator a few releases before they are enabled by default in the QL compiler. This helps ensure that the performance you experience when developing queries in the newest CodeQL release can be matched by slightly older releases that may still be in use for Code Scanning or CI integrations.
If you do not care about your queries being compatible with other (earlier or later) CodeQL releases, you can sometimes achieve a small amount of extra performance by using this flag to enable recent improvements in the compiler early.
In releases where there are no recent improvements to enable, this option silently does nothing. Thus it is safe to set it once and for all in your global CodeQL config file.
Available since v2.11.1
.
--[no-]local-checking
Only perform initial checks on the part of the QL source that is used.
--no-metadata-verification
Don't check embedded query metadata in QLDoc comments for validity.
--compilation-cache-size=<MB>
[Advanced] Override the default maximum size for a compilation cache directory.
Options to set up compilation environment
--search-path=<dir>[:<dir>...]
A list of directories under which QL packs may be found. Each directory
can either be a QL pack (or bundle of packs containing a
.codeqlmanifest.json
file at the root) or the immediate parent of one
or more such directories.
If the path contains more than one directory, their order defines precedence between them: when a pack name that must be resolved is matched in more than one of the directory trees, the one given first wins.
Pointing this at a checkout of the open-source CodeQL repository ought to work when querying one of the languages that live there.
If you have checked out the CodeQL repository as a sibling of the
unpacked CodeQL toolchain, you don't need to give this option; such
sibling directories will always be searched for QL packs that cannot be
found otherwise. (If this default does not work, it is strongly
recommended to set up --search-path
once and for all in a per-user
configuration file).
(Note: On Windows the path separator is ;
).
--additional-packs=<dir>[:<dir>...]
If this list of directories is given, they will be searched for packs
before the ones in --search-path
. The order between these doesn't
matter; it is an error if a pack name is found in two different places
through this list.
This is useful if you're temporarily developing a new version of a pack that also appears in the default path. On the other hand, it is not recommended to override this option in a config file; some internal actions will add this option on the fly, overriding any configured value.
(Note: On Windows the path separator is ;
).
--library-path=<dir>[:<dir>...]
[Advanced] An optional list of directories that will be added to the raw import search path for QL libraries. This should only be used if you're using QL libraries that have not been packaged as QL packs.
(Note: On Windows the path separator is ;
).
--dbscheme=<file>
[Advanced] Explicitly define which dbscheme queries should be compiled against. This should only be given by callers that are extremely sure what they're doing.
--compilation-cache=<dir>
[Advanced] Specify an additional directory to use as a compilation cache.
--no-default-compilation-cache
[Advanced] Don't use compilation caches in standard locations such as in the QL pack containing the query or in the CodeQL toolchain directory.
Options for configuring the CodeQL package manager
--registries-auth-stdin
Authenticate to GitHub Enterprise Server Container registries by passing
a comma-separated list of \<registry_url>=\
For example, you can pass
https://containers.GHEHOSTNAME1/v2/=TOKEN1,https://containers.GHEHOSTNAME2/v2/=TOKEN2
to authenticate to two GitHub Enterprise Server instances.
This overrides the CODEQL_REGISTRIES_AUTH and GITHUB_TOKEN environment
variables. If you only need to authenticate to the github.com Container
registry, you can instead authenticate using the simpler
--github-auth-stdin
option.
--github-auth-stdin
Authenticate to the github.com Container registry by passing a github.com GitHub Apps token or personal access token via standard input.
To authenticate to GitHub Enterprise Server Container registries, pass
--registries-auth-stdin
or use the CODEQL_REGISTRIES_AUTH environment
variable.
This overrides the GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable.
Common options
-h, --help
Show this help text.
-J=<opt>
[Advanced] Give option to the JVM running the command.
(Beware that options containing spaces will not be handled correctly.)
-v, --verbose
Incrementally increase the number of progress messages printed.
-q, --quiet
Incrementally decrease the number of progress messages printed.
--verbosity=<level>
[Advanced] Explicitly set the verbosity level to one of errors,
warnings, progress, progress+, progress++, progress+++. Overrides -v
and -q
.
--logdir=<dir>
[Advanced] Write detailed logs to one or more files in the given directory, with generated names that include timestamps and the name of the running subcommand.
(To write a log file with a name you have full control over, instead
give --log-to-stderr
and redirect stderr as desired.)