Checkmarx scanner reference
You can scan your repositories using Checkmarx. Harness STO supports the following workflows:
- Ingestion workflows for all Checkmarx One services (including SAST and SCA) that can publish scan results in SARIF format.
- Orchestration, Extraction, and Ingestion workflows for Checkmarx SAST and Checkmarx SCA scans.
Checkmarx step configuration
The recommended workflow is add a Checkmarx step to a Security Tests or CI Build stage and then configure it as described below. You can also configure Checkmarx scans programmatically by copying, pasting, and editing the YAML definition.
- UI configuration support is currently limited to a subset of scanners. Extending UI support to additional scanners is on the Harness engineering roadmap.
- Each scanner template shows only the options that apply to a specific scan. If you're setting up a repository scan, for example, the UI won't show Container Image settings.
- Docker-in-Docker is not required for these steps unless you're scanning a container image. If you're scanning a repository using Bandit, for example, you don't need to set up a Background step running DinD.
- Support is currently limited to Kubernetes and Harness Cloud AMD64 build infrastructures only.
Scanner Template example
Scan settings
Scan Mode
The orchestration mode to use for the scan. The following list includes the UI and YAML values for the supported options.
- Orchestrated A fully-orchestrated scan. A Security step in the Harness pipeline orchestrates a scan and then normalizes and compresses the results.
- Extraction A partially-orchestrated scan. The Security step pulls scan results from an external SaaS service and then normalizes and compresses the data.
- Ingestion Ingestion scans are not orchestrated. The Security step ingest results from a previous scan (for a scan run in an previous step) and then normallizes and compresses the results.
Scan Configuration
The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.
Target
Type
- Repository Scan a codebase repo.
Name
The Identifier that you want to assign to the target you’re scanning in the pipeline. Use a unique, descriptive name such as codebaseAlpha
or jsmith/myalphaservice
.
Variant
An identifier for a specific variant to scan, such as the branch name or image tag. This identifier is used to differentiate or group results for a target. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.
Workspace
The workspace path on the pod running the Security step. The workspace path is /harness
by default.
You can override this if you want to scan only a subset of the workspace. For example, suppose the pipeline publishes artifacts to a subfolder /tmp/artifacts
and you want to scan these artifacts only. In this case, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/artifacts
.
Ingestion File
The results data file to use when running an Ingestion scan. STO steps can ingest scan data in SARIF and Harness Custom JSON format. Generally an Ingestion scan consists of a scan step (to generate the data file) and an ingestion step (to ingest the data file).
Authentication
Domain
The fully-qualified URL to the scanner.
Enforce SSL
The step and the scanner communicate over SSL by default. Set this to false to disable SSL (not safe).
Access ID
Username to log in to the scanner.
Access Token
The access token to log in to the scanner. In most cases this is a password or an API key.
You should create a Harness text secret with your encrypted token and reference the secret using the format <+secrets.getValue("project.container-access-id">
. For more information, go to Add and Reference Text Secrets.
Scan Tool
Team Name
The Checkmarx team name. Use the format /<
server-name
>/<
team-name
>
— for example, /server1.myorg.org/devOpsEast
.
Project Name
The name of the scan project as defined in the scanner. This is the also the target name in the Harness UI (Security Tests > Test Targets).
Log Level, CLI flags, and Fail on Severity
Log Level
The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:
- DEBUG
- INFO
- WARNING
- ERROR
Additional CLI flags
You can use this field to customize the scan with specific command-line arguments supported by that scanner.
Fail on Severity
Every Security step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:
CRITICAL
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
INFO
NONE
— Do not fail on severity
The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none
Settings
You can use this field to run the Checkmarx plugin with specific command-line arguments. To run an incremental scan, for example, specify tool_args
= -incremental
.
Running incremental scans with Checkmarx
In some cases, you might want to run an incremental rather than a full scan with Checkmarx due to time or licensing limits. An incremental scan evaluates only new or changed code in a merge or pull request. Incremental scans are faster than full scans, but become less accurate over time.
Consider carefully when to run incremental vs. full scans. See When should I use Incremental Scans vs Full Scans in CxSAST? in the Checkmarx documentation.
Additional Configuration
In the Additional Configuration settings, you can use the following options:
Advanced settings
In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:
Security step configuration (deprecated)
Set up a Checkmarx scan in a Security step
You can set up any supported scanner using a Security step: create a CI Build or Security Tests stage, add a Security step, and then add the setting:value
pairs as specified below.
Security step dialog box
Here's an example of how to set up a scan in a Security step. scan_type
and policy_type
are scanner-specific; the other settings are common to scans of container images.

product_name
=checkmarx
scan_type
=repository
policy_type
=orchestratedScan
,dataLoad
, oringestionOnly
- When
policy_type
is set toorchestratedScan
ordataLoad
:product_domain
product_access_id
product_access_token
= The account passwordproduct_team_name
=/<
server-name
>/<
team-name
>
for example,/server1.myorg.org/devOpsEast
product_project_name
product_config_name
=default
- When
policy_type
is set toorchestratedScan
fail_on_severity
- See Fail on Severity.
tool_args
You can use this field to run the Checkmarx plugin with specific command-line arguments. To run an incremental scan, for example, specifytool_args
=-incremental
. For more information, go to Running incremental scans with Checkmarx.
Repository scan settings
The following settings apply to all scanners where the scan_type
is repository
.
repository_project
(required)repository_branch
(required)
Target Name | Target Type |
azure | repository |
bitbucket | repository |
github | repository |
gitlab | repository |
Ingestion scan settings
The following settings are required for Security steps where the policy_type
is ingestionOnly
.
target name
The Identifier that you want to assign to the target you’re scanning in the pipeline. Use a unique, descriptive name such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice.variant
An identifier for a specific target to scan, such as the branch name or image tag. This identifier is used to differentiate or group results for a target. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.ingestion_file
The results data file to use when running an Ingestion scan. You should specify the full path to the data file in your workspace, such as/shared/customer_artifacts/my_scan_results.json
. STO steps can ingest scan data in SARIF and Harness Custom JSON format.
The following steps outline the general workflow for ingesting scan data into your pipeline:
Specify a shared folder for your scan results, such as
/shared/customer_artifacts
. You can do this in the Overview tab of the Security stage where you're ingesting your data.Create a Run step that copies your scan results to the shared folder. You can run your scan externally, before you run the build, or set up the Run step to run the scan and then copy the results.
Add a Security step after the Run step and add the
target name
,variant
, andingestion_file
settings as described above.
For a complete workflow description and example, go to Ingest Scan Results into an STO Pipeline.
Example workflow: Ingest SARIF data from a Checkmarx GitHub Action scan
The following pipeline example illustrates an ingestion workflow. It consists of two steps:
- An Action step scans a code repo using a Checkmarx GitHub Action and export the scan results to a SARIF data file.
- A Checkmarx step that ingests the SARIF data.
pipeline:
projectIdentifier: STO
orgIdentifier: default
tags: {}
properties:
ci:
codebase:
connectorRef: NodeGoat_Harness_Hosted
repoName: https://github.com/OWASP/NodeGoat
build: <+input>
stages:
- stage:
name: CheckmarxSCA
identifier: checkmarxone
type: CI
spec:
cloneCodebase: true
execution:
steps:
- step:
type: Action
name: Checkmarx Scan GHA
identifier: CxFlow
spec:
uses: checkmarx-ts/checkmarx-cxflow-github-action@v1.6
with:
project: SampleProject
team: /CxServer/nzsouth
scanners: sca
checkmarx_url: <+secrets.getValue("my-checkmarx-url")>
checkmarx_username: zeronorth
checkmarx_password: <+secrets.getValue("my-checkmarx-password")>
checkmarx_client_secret: <+secrets.getValue("my-checkmarx-client-secret")>
sca_username: harness
sca_password: <+secrets.getValue("my-sca-passeword")>
sca_tenant: cxIntegrations
break_build: false
- step:
type: Checkmarx
name: ingest-cmarx
identifier: Checkmarx_1
spec:
mode: ingestion
config: default
target:
name: <+pipeline.name>
type: repository
variant: dev
advanced:
log:
level: debug
runAsUser: "1001"
ingestion:
file: /harness/cx.sarif
platform:
os: Linux
arch: Amd64
runtime:
type: Cloud
spec: {}
sharedPaths:
- /shared/customer_artifacts/
identifier: CheckmarxGitAction
name: CheckmarxGitAction