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REST API
The REST API is now versioned. For more information, see "About API versioning."

Dependency submission

Use the REST API to submit dependencies.

About dependency submissions

Note: The ability to use the REST API for dependency submission is currently in public beta and subject to change.

You can use the REST API to 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.

You can submit dependencies 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 in the required format each time your project is built. For more information, see "Using the Dependency submission API."

You can submit multiple sets of dependencies to be included in your dependency graph. The REST 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 for "Create a snapshot of dependencies for a repository"

Headers
accept string

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

Path parameters
owner string Required

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

repo string Required

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

Body parameters
version integer Required

The version of the repository snapshot submission.

job object Required
id string Required

The external ID of the job.

correlator string Required

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.

sha string Required

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

ref string Required

The repository branch that triggered this snapshot.

detector object Required

A description of the detector used.

name string Required

The name of the detector used.

version string Required

The version of the detector used.

url string Required

The url of the detector used.

metadata object

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

manifests object

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

key object

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

name string Required

The name of the manifest.

file object
source_location string

The path of the manifest file relative to the root of the Git repository.

metadata object

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

resolved object

A collection of resolved package dependencies.

key object

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

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.

scanned string Required

The time at which the snapshot was scanned.

HTTP response status codes for "Create a snapshot of dependencies for a repository"

Status codeDescription
201

Created

Code samples for "Create a snapshot of dependencies for a repository"

post/repos/{owner}/{repo}/dependency-graph/snapshots
curl -L \ -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" }