bomly-cli

README

Analyze Your Software DNA.

Bomly is a free, open-source CLI for dependency intelligence. It scans source trees, SBOMs, Git refs, and container images; explains why dependencies are present; enriches packages with vulnerability and license data when you ask for it; evaluates policy; and writes automation-friendly output for CI.

Free and open source, no account, no login. One binary. No service to host. No telemetry. No outbound matcher calls unless you opt in with --enrich. Network and Privacy documents every network trigger so you can audit that claim instead of taking it on faith.

Install Bomly

# macOS / Linuxbrew
brew install bomly-dev/tap/bomly

# Linux / macOS install script
curl -fsSL https://bomly.dev/install.sh | sh

# Windows
winget install Bomly.BomlyCLI

Prebuilt archives and Linux packages are published from GitHub Releases. Releases include bomly (full binary with builtin Syft and Grype) and bomly-lite (smaller binary that shells out to external syft and grype).

Verify the install:

bomly version

For Linux packages, Scoop, Go install, checksums, pinned versions, upgrades, and uninstall instructions, see Installation.

Start With a Scan

# Scan the current project
bomly scan

# Scan a specific directory
bomly scan --path ./services/api

# Scan a container image
bomly scan --image ghcr.io/example/app:latest

# Scan a remote Git ref
bomly scan --url https://github.com/owner/repo --ref v1.2.3

# Read an existing SPDX or CycloneDX SBOM
bomly scan --sbom --path ./sbom.cdx.json

Bomly reads manifests, lockfiles, package-manager output, container layers, or existing SBOMs and turns them into one dependency graph. Native detectors cover Go, npm, pnpm, Yarn, Maven, Gradle, Python, Composer, Bundler, GitHub Actions, SBOM ingest, and more. Syft fills the long tail, including container images. See the Support Matrix and Scan Targets.

What Bomly Can Answer

Question	Command
What do we depend on?	bomly scan
What changed in this PR or branch?	bomly diff --base main --head HEAD
Why is this package here?	bomly explain lodash
Which findings matter to policy?	bomly scan --enrich --audit --fail-on high
Can CI fail on high-severity findings?	bomly scan --enrich --audit --fail-on high --format sarif
Can I triage reachable findings first?	bomly scan --enrich --audit --analyze --fail-on high --fail-on reachable

For more recipes, see Getting Started and Use Cases. To review the public inputs, commands, expected results, and limitations behind important behavior claims, see Reproducible Evidence.

Explore Interactively

Open the terminal UI when you want to inspect a graph by hand:

bomly scan --interactive

Use it to fuzzy-find packages, inspect versions and scopes, pivot through findings, and see how a dependency entered the graph without writing a report to disk. See Interactive TUI.

Enrich and Audit

By default, Bomly does not call vulnerability, license, lifecycle, or scorecard services. Add --enrich when you want external package intelligence:

# Fetch vulnerability and license data
bomly scan --enrich

# Evaluate policy against enriched package data
bomly scan --enrich --audit --fail-on high

# Add experimental reachability analysis
bomly scan --enrich --audit --analyze --fail-on high --fail-on reachable

Built-in enrichment uses public services such as OSV, CISA KEV, deps.dev, and OpenSSF Scorecard. --audit evaluates the vulnerability and license data already present on packages; use --enrich --audit when you want to fetch and evaluate in one run.

Reachability is experimental. It is useful for triage, but "unreachable" is not a guarantee of safety. Read Reachability before using --fail-on reachable as a CI gate.

Explain and Diff

Use explain when a transitive package shows up and you need the path:

bomly explain requests
bomly explain lodash --path ./web

Use diff when you need to review dependency changes across Git refs or SBOMs:

# Compare Git refs
bomly diff --base main --head HEAD

# Compare two SBOM files
bomly diff --sbom --base ./old.spdx.json --head ./new.spdx.json

See Getting Started for the first-run walkthrough and Use Cases for PR review, upgrade review, and incident triage recipes.

Generate Output for CI

Bomly can write human-readable text, JSON, SARIF, SPDX 2.3, and CycloneDX 1.7:

# Structured JSON for automation
bomly scan --json

# SARIF for security tabs and code-scanning integrations
bomly scan --enrich --audit --fail-on high --format sarif

# Write SBOM artifacts (add --format text to also print the report)
bomly scan -o spdx=sbom.spdx.json -o cyclonedx=sbom.cdx.json

# Emit one SBOM to stdout
bomly scan --format cyclonedx

Exit codes are stable for scripts: 0 for clean results, 2 for policy violations, and separate values for usage, runtime, and no-supported-project failures. See Output Formats, SBOM Formats, and Exit Codes.

To gate pull requests, use the Bomly Guard action or call the CLI directly from your workflow:

# .github/workflows/bomly.yml
- uses: actions/checkout@v5
  with:
    fetch-depth: 0
- uses: bomly-dev/bomly-guard@v1
  with:
    fail-on: high

See Bomly Guard and CI Integration.

Use Bomly With AI Agents

Bomly can run as a local MCP server so AI agents can call the same dependency graph tools you use on the command line:

bomly mcp serve

If you have not installed the CLI, the bomly-mcp npm wrapper starts the same server:

npx -y bomly-mcp

Add Bomly to an MCP-aware agent such as Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, or a custom tool, and the agent receives structured JSON it can summarize or reason over. See MCP Server for setup recipes and the tool reference.

Configure and Extend

Bomly reads configuration from your user config, an explicitly selected config file, BOMLY_* environment variables, and CLI flags, with later sources taking precedence:

1. ~/.bomly/config.yaml
2. --config <path> or BOMLY_CONFIG
3. BOMLY_* environment variables
4. CLI flags

Repository config files are never loaded automatically. A project may keep its shared configuration at .bomly/config.yaml, but you must trust it explicitly with --config .bomly/config.yaml or BOMLY_CONFIG. See the generated Config Reference.

Managed plugins let you add detectors, matchers, and auditors without forking Bomly:

bomly plugins install github:bomly-dev/bomly-plugin-bun-lock-detector@v0.1.0
bomly plugins enable bomly.examples.detector.bun-lock
bomly plugins verify bomly.examples.detector.bun-lock

See Plugins for install, trust, and authoring guidance.

Documentation

• Getting Started - install Bomly and run your first scan
• Tutorial - from first scan to a CI gate on a real project
• FAQ - quick answers on privacy, accounts, and tool differences
• Installation - install methods, checksums, upgrades, uninstall
• Use Cases - practical recipes for PR gates, SBOMs, triage, and offline scans
• Scan Targets - directories, Git repos, containers, and SBOMs
• Output Formats - text, JSON, SARIF, SPDX, CycloneDX
• SBOM Formats - SPDX 2.3 and CycloneDX 1.7, ingest, and conversion recipes
• CI Integration - GitHub Actions, GitLab, Jenkins, Azure, CircleCI
• Bomly Guard - turnkey GitHub Action for PR dependency review
• MCP Server - connect Bomly to Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, or another MCP client
• Reachability - experimental reachable-vulnerability triage
• Plugins - managed external detectors, matchers, and auditors
• Release Notes - what changed in each version
• All Documentation - full docs index

Contributor setup lives in CONTRIBUTING.md. Architecture details live in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Questions

For questions, ideas, and general support, please use Bomly Discussions.

Use this repository's issues only for confirmed bugs, regressions, or actionable implementation work.

Support

Bomly is an open-source project. If you find it useful, you can support the project by starring the repository, sharing feedback, opening issues, contributing improvements, or sponsoring ongoing maintenance.

See Support Bomly.

License

Bomly CLI is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.