Dependency submission

The Dependency submission API allows you to submit dependencies for projects, such as the dependencies resolved when a project is built or compiled.

About the Dependency submission API

Note: The Dependency submission API is currently in public beta and subject to change.

The Dependency submission API lets you submit dependencies for a project. This enables you to add dependencies, such as those resolved when software is compiled or built, to GitHub's dependency graph feature, providing a more complete picture of all of your project's dependencies.

The dependency graph shows any dependencies you submit using the API in addition to any dependencies that are identified from manifest or lock files in the repository (for example, a package-lock.json file in a JavaScript project). For more information about viewing the dependency graph, see "Exploring the dependencies of a repository."

Submitted dependencies will receive Dependabot alerts and Dependabot security updates for any known vulnerabilities. You will only get Dependabot alerts for dependencies that are from one of the supported ecosystems of the GitHub Advisory Database. Submitted dependencies will not be surfaced in dependency review or your organization's dependency insights.

Dependencies are submitted to the dependency submission API in the form of a snapshot. A snapshot is a set of dependencies associated with a commit SHA and other metadata, that reflects the current state of your repository for a commit. You can choose to use pre-made actions or create your own actions to submit your dependencies to the dependency submission API in the required format each time your project is built. For more information about using the Dependency submission API, see "Using the Dependency submission API."

You can submit multiple sets of dependencies to the Dependency submission API to be included in your dependency graph. The API uses the job.correlator property and the detector.name category of the snapshot to ensure the latest submissions for each workflow get shown. The correlator property itself is the primary field you will use to keep independent submissions distinct. An example correlator could be a simple combination of two variables available in actions runs: <GITHUB_WORKFLOW> <GITHUB_JOB>.

Create a snapshot of dependencies for a repository

Works with GitHub Apps

Create a new snapshot of a repository's dependencies. You must authenticate using an access token with the repo scope to use this endpoint for a repository that the requesting user has access to.

Parameters

Headers

Name, Type, Description

acceptstring

Setting to application/vnd.github+json is recommended.

Path parameters

Name, Type, Description

ownerstringRequired

The account owner of the repository. The name is not case sensitive.

repostringRequired

The name of the repository. The name is not case sensitive.

Body parameters

Name, Type, Description

versionintegerRequired

The version of the repository snapshot submission.

jobobjectRequired

Properties of job

Name, Type, Description
`id`stringRequired The external ID of the job.
`correlator`stringRequired Correlator provides a key that is used to group snapshots submitted over time. Only the "latest" submitted snapshot for a given combination of `job.correlator` and `detector.name` will be considered when calculating a repository's current dependencies. Correlator should be as unique as it takes to distinguish all detection runs for a given "wave" of CI workflow you run. If you're using GitHub Actions, a good default value for this could be the environment variables GITHUB_WORKFLOW and GITHUB_JOB concatenated together. If you're using a build matrix, then you'll also need to add additional key(s) to distinguish between each submission inside a matrix variation.
`html_url`string The url for the job.

shastringRequired

The commit SHA associated with this dependency snapshot. Maximum length: 40 characters.

refstringRequired

The repository branch that triggered this snapshot.

detectorobjectRequired

A description of the detector used.

Properties of detector

Name, Type, Description
`name`stringRequired The name of the detector used.
`version`stringRequired The version of the detector used.
`url`stringRequired The url of the detector used.

metadataobject

User-defined metadata to store domain-specific information limited to 8 keys with scalar values.

manifestsobject

A collection of package manifests, which are a collection of related dependencies declared in a file or representing a logical group of dependencies.

Properties of manifests

Name, Type, Description

keyobject

A user-defined key to represent an item in manifests.

Properties of key

Name, Type, Description

namestringRequired

The name of the manifest.

fileobject

Properties of file

Name, Type, Description
`source_location`string The path of the manifest file relative to the root of the Git repository.

metadataobject

User-defined metadata to store domain-specific information limited to 8 keys with scalar values.

resolvedobject

A collection of resolved package dependencies.

Properties of resolved

Name, Type, Description

keyobject

A user-defined key to represent an item in resolved.

Properties of key

Name, Type, Description
`package_url`string Package-url (PURL) of dependency. See https://github.com/package-url/purl-spec for more details.
`metadata`object User-defined metadata to store domain-specific information limited to 8 keys with scalar values.
`relationship`string A notation of whether a dependency is requested directly by this manifest or is a dependency of another dependency. Can be one of: `direct`, `indirect`
`scope`string A notation of whether the dependency is required for the primary build artifact (runtime) or is only used for development. Future versions of this specification may allow for more granular scopes. Can be one of: `runtime`, `development`
`dependencies`array of strings Array of package-url (PURLs) of direct child dependencies.

scannedstringRequired

The time at which the snapshot was scanned.

HTTP response status codes

Status code	Description
`201`	Created

Code samples

post/repos/{owner}/{repo}/dependency-graph/snapshots

curl \
  -X POST \
  -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR-TOKEN>"\
  -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" \
  https://api.github.com/repos/OWNER/REPO/dependency-graph/snapshots \
  -d '{"version":0,"sha":"ce587453ced02b1526dfb4cb910479d431683101","ref":"refs/heads/main","job":{"correlator":"yourworkflowname_youractionname","id":"yourrunid"},"detector":{"name":"octo-detector","version":"0.0.1","url":"https://github.com/octo-org/octo-repo"},"scanned":"2022-06-14T20:25:00Z","manifests":{"package-lock.json":{"name":"package-lock.json","file":{"source_location":"src/package-lock.json"},"resolved":{"@actions/core":{"package_url":"pkg:/npm/%40actions/core@1.1.9","dependencies":["@actions/http-client"]},"@actions/http-client":{"package_url":"pkg:/npm/%40actions/http-client@1.0.7","dependencies":["tunnel"]},"tunnel":{"package_url":"pkg:/npm/tunnel@0.0.6"}}}}}'

Response

Status: 201

{
  "id": 12345,
  "created_at": "2018-05-04T01:14:52Z",
  "message": "Dependency results for the repo have been successfully updated.",
  "result": "SUCCESS"
}