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database init

In this article

[Plumbing] Create an empty CodeQL database.

Important

GitHub CodeQL is licensed on a per-user basis upon installation. You can use CodeQL only for certain tasks under the license restrictions. For more information, see "About the CodeQL CLI."

If you have a GitHub Advanced Security license, you can use CodeQL for automated analysis, continuous integration, and continuous delivery. For more information, see "About GitHub Advanced Security."

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

Shell
codeql database init --source-root=<dir> [--language=<lang>[,<lang>...]] [--github-auth-stdin] [--github-url=<url>] [--extractor-option=<extractor-option-name=value>] <options>... -- <database>

Description

[Plumbing] Create an empty CodeQL database.

Create a skeleton structure for a CodeQL database that doesn't have a raw QL dataset yet, but is ready for running extractor steps. After this command completes, run one or more codeql database trace-command commands followed by codeql database finalize to prepare the database for querying.

(Part of what this does is resolve the location of the appropriate language pack and store it in the database metadata, such that it won't need to be redone at each extraction command. It is not valid to switch extractors in the middle of an extraction operation anyway.)

Options

Primary Options

<database>

[Mandatory] Path to the CodeQL database to create. This directory will be created, and must not already exist (but its parent must).

If the --db-cluster option is given, this will not be a database itself, but a directory that will contain databases for several languages built from the same source root.

It is important that this directory is not in a location that the build process will interfere with. For instance, the target directory of a Maven project would not be a suitable choice.

-s, --source-root=<dir>

[Mandatory] The root source code directory. In many cases, this will be the checkout root. Files within it are considered to be the primary source files for this database. In some output formats, files will be referred to by their relative path from this directory.

--[no-]overwrite

[Advanced] If the database already exists, delete it and proceed with this command instead of failing. This option should be used with caution as it may recursively delete the entire database directory.

--codescanning-config=<file>

[Advanced] Read a Code Scanning configuration file specifying options on how to create the CodeQL databases and what queries to run in later steps. For more details on the format of this configuration file, refer to Customizing code scanning. To run queries from this file in a later step, invoke codeql database analyze without any other queries specified.

--[no-]db-cluster

Instead of creating a single database, create a "cluster" of databases for different languages, each of which is a subdirectory of the directory given on the command line.

-l, --language=<lang>[,<lang>...]

The language that the new database will be used to analyze.

Use codeql resolve languages to get a list of the pluggable language extractors found on the search path.

When the --db-cluster option is given, this can appear multiple times, or the value can be a comma-separated list of languages.

If this option is omitted, and the source root being analysed is a checkout of a GitHub repository, the CodeQL CLI will make a call to the GitHub API to attempt to automatically determine what languages to analyse. Note that to be able to do this, a GitHub PAT token must be supplied either in the environment variable GITHUB_TOKEN or via standard input using the --github-auth-stdin option.

--[no-]allow-missing-source-root

[Advanced] Proceed even if the specified source root does not exist.

--[no-]begin-tracing

[Advanced] Create some scripts that can be used to set up "indirect build tracing," which allows integration into existing build workflows when an explicit build command is not available. For information about when and how to use this feature, please refer to our documentation at Preparing your code for CodeQL analysis.

Baseline calculation options

--[no-]calculate-baseline

[Advanced] Calculate baseline information about the code being analyzed and add it to the database. By default, this is enabled unless the source root is the root of a filesystem. This flag can be used to either disable, or force the behavior to be enabled even in the root of the filesystem.

--[no-]sublanguage-file-coverage

[GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise Server v3.12.0+ only] Use sub-language file coverage information. This calculates, displays, and exports separate file coverage information for languages which share a CodeQL extractor like C and C++, Java and Kotlin, and JavaScript and TypeScript.

Available since v2.15.2.

Extractor selection options

--search-path=<dir>[:<dir>...]

A list of directories under which extractor packs may be found. The directories can either be the extractor packs themselves or directories that contain extractors as immediate subdirectories.

If the path contains multiple directory trees, their order defines precedence between them: if the target language is matched in more than one of the directory trees, the one given first wins.

The extractors bundled with the CodeQL toolchain itself will always be found, but if you need to use separately distributed extractors you need to give this option (or, better yet, set up --search-path in a per-user configuration file).

(Note: On Windows the path separator is ;).

Options to configure how to call the GitHub API to auto-detect languages.

-a, --github-auth-stdin

Accept a GitHub Apps token or personal access token via standard input.

This overrides the GITHUB_TOKEN environment variable.

-g, --github-url=<url>

URL of the GitHub instance to use. If omitted, the CLI will attempt to autodetect this from the checkout path and if this is not possible default to https://github.com/

Options to configure the package manager.

--registries-auth-stdin

Authenticate to GitHub Enterprise Server Container registries by passing a comma-separated list of <registry_url>=<token> pairs.

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.

Options to configure Windows tracing

--trace-process-name=<process-name>

[Windows only] When initializing tracing, inject the tracer into a parent process of the CodeQL CLI whose name matches this argument. If more than one parent process has this name, the one lowest in the process tree will be selected. This option overrides --trace-process-level, so if both are passed, only this option will be used.

--trace-process-level=<process-level>

[Windows only] When initializing tracing, inject the tracer this many parents above the current process, with 0 corresponding to the process that is invoking the CodeQL CLI. The CLI's default behavior if no arguments are passed is to inject into the parent of the calling process, with some special cases for GitHub Actions and Azure Pipelines.

Options to configure indirect build tracing

--no-tracing

[Advanced] Do not trace the specified command, instead rely on it to produce all necessary data directly.

--extra-tracing-config=<tracing-config.lua>

[Advanced] The path to a tracer configuration file. It may be used to modify the behaviour of the build tracer. It may be used to pick out compiler processes that run as part of the build command, and trigger the execution of other tools. The extractors will provide default tracer configuration files that should work in most situations.

Options to control extractor behavior: only be applied to the indirect tracing environment

-O, --extractor-option=<extractor-option-name=value>

Set options for CodeQL extractors. extractor-option-name should be of the form extractor_name.group1.group2.option_name or group1.group2.option_name. If extractor_option_name starts with an extractor name, the indicated extractor must declare the option group1.group2.option_name. Otherwise, any extractor that declares the option group1.group2.option_name will have the option set. value can be any string that does not contain a newline.

You can use this command-line option repeatedly to set multiple extractor options. If you provide multiple values for the same extractor option, the behaviour depends on the type that the extractor option expects. String options will use the last value provided. Array options will use all the values provided, in order. Extractor options specified using this command-line option are processed after extractor options given via --extractor-options-file.

When passed to codeql database init or codeql database begin-tracing, the options will only be applied to the indirect tracing environment. If your workflow also makes calls to codeql database trace-command then the options also need to be passed there if desired.

See https://codeql.github.com/docs/codeql-cli/extractor-options for more information on CodeQL extractor options, including how to list the options declared by each extractor.

--extractor-options-file=<extractor-options-bundle-file>

Specify extractor option bundle files. An extractor option bundle file is a JSON file (extension .json) or YAML file (extension .yaml or .yml) that sets extractor options. The file must have the top-level map key 'extractor' and, under it, extractor names as second-level map keys. Further levels of maps represent nested extractor groups, and string and array options are map entries with string and array values.

Extractor option bundle files are read in the order they are specified. If different extractor option bundle files specify the same extractor option, the behaviour depends on the type that the extractor option expects. String options will use the last value provided. Array options will use all the values provided, in order. Extractor options specified using this command-line option are processed before extractor options given via --extractor-option.

When passed to codeql database init or codeql database begin-tracing, the options will only be applied to the indirect tracing environment. If your workflow also makes calls to codeql database trace-command then the options also need to be passed there if desired.

See https://codeql.github.com/docs/codeql-cli/extractor-options for more information on CodeQL extractor options, including how to list the options declared by each extractor.

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.)

--common-caches=<dir>

[Advanced] Controls the location of cached data on disk that will persist between several runs of the CLI, such as downloaded QL packs and compiled query plans. If not set explicitly, this defaults to a directory named .codeql in the user's home directory; it will be created if it doesn't already exist.

Available since v2.15.2.