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View findings in Semgrep AppSec Platform

Semgrep Code generates a finding when a rule matches a piece of code in your codebase. You can use Semgrep AppSec Platform's Code page to view all of the findings generated by Semgrep Code after it scans your codebase.

View findings

To view your findings in Semgrep AppSec Platform:

  1. Log in to Semgrep AppSec Platform.
  2. In the Navigation bar, click Code.

By default, Semgrep displays your Priority findings. Priority findings are defined as findings that:

  • Are categorized as Security findings. You can identify findings categorized under Security using the badge.
  • Are flagged with a severity level of critical or high
  • Are flagged with a confidence level of high
  • Are flagged by Semgrep Assistant as likely being a true positive or has not been analyzed by Assistant yet

You can switch to the All tab at any point to view all findings identified by Semgrep Code. Both the Priority findings view and the All findings view display high-level information about your findings.

Custom Priority tab

Semgrep admins can create a custom priority definition to change the findings shown on the Priority tab. To do so:

  1. Log in to Semgrep AppSec Platform.
  2. In the Navigation bar, click Code. Ensure that you're viewing the Priority.
  3. Using the provided filters, set your parameters for priority findings.
  4. Click Save.
  5. You'll see a dialog window asking you to confirm that you want the changes saved for everyone. Click Save to proceed.

This change applies to the entire Semgrep organization. You cannot have separate priority definitions for individual users or teams.

Filter findings

Regardless of whether you use the Priority findings view or the All findings view, there are multiple grouping and filtering options available to you.

Time period

The time period filters allow you to see which vulnerabilities were opened, fixed, or triaged during a certain period of time. The time period filter is not additive; it is a filter operation that precedes other filters on the page. For example, if you select Last triaged and select the status Status Open filter, no findings appear because, by definition, there are no triaged findings that are also open.

The following filters are available:

  • Triage state update action:
    • Opened in
    • Triaged in
    • Fixed in
  • Time period:
    • Last day
    • Last 7 days
    • Last 30 days
    • Last 3 months
    • Last 6 months
    • Last year
    • All time

Project

The Project filter allows you to search for findings associated with the selected projects.

Status

The Status filter allows you to search for findings in the selected statuses. See Triage status for additional information.

Additional filters

Semgrep offers additional filters that you can use to narrow down your results. The following filters are available:

FilterDescription
SeverityFilter by the severity of a finding. Severity is computed based on the values assigned for Likelihood and Impact by the rule's author. Possible values:
  • Low
  • Medium
  • High
  • Critical
CategoryFilter by the type of security issue or vulnerability the rule detects, such as security, correctness, and maintainability. You can select more than one category at a time. See Finding categories for information on how Semgrep categorizes your findings.
ConfidenceFilter by the likelihood of the rule to detect true positives. The higher the confidence, the more true positives the rule may detect.
Rule modeFilter by monitoring, commenting, or blocking rules in your Policies.
RuleFilter by rules included in your Policies page. You can select more than one rule or ruleset for filtering.
RulesetFilter by the ruleset name where rules that match the code belong. More than one rule or ruleset can be selected for filtering.
Pro findings onlyFilter for findings identified using Semgrep Pro rules. Also includes findings originating from cross-file or cross-function analysis.
Code lifecycleFilter for findings based on whether they are Production findings or Pre-production findings. Production findings are those identified on primary branches, while Pre-production findings are those identified on pull request or merge requests.
Project tagsFilter for findings based on the tags associated with the project.
TeamsFilter for findings in projects owned by the selected teams.
Assistant file risk levelFilter for findings based on Assistant's assessment of risk level of files based on the type of code identified. High-risk files contain sensitive information, such as authorization and authentication details, while low-risk files may be things like test files. You can further filter by file type, such as payments or tests.
Assistant autotriageFilter by whether Assistant autotriage has determined the finding to be a True positive or False positive.

Finding categories

Expand to learn about how Semgrep categorizes your findings.

A finding can be categorized in two ways:

  1. Finding categorization based on the issue or code it detects:

    • Anti-patterns
    • Security vulnerabilities, such as dangerous function usage
    • Business or logic bugs
    • Matches based on your own custom rules, such as organization-specific authentication logic

    Semgrep rules provide a metadata schema to identify these common categories. Semgrep findings include a message field that describes the security issue or bug found in matching code. Additionally, findings can provide a fix field that fixes the issue by creating a suggestion within your source code management (SCM) tool, such as GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket.

  2. Finding categorization based on the validity of the match:

    • True positive: Rules are written to match a certain code pattern. A true positive is a genuine match. The rule is capturing the code as intended.

    • False positive: A false positive is a mismatch between the intended purpose of the rule and the code it matched. A finding is generated but does not meet the rule's intended need. Rules with a high false positivity rate are said to be noisy.

    • False negative: A false negative is a finding that should have been found by a rule, but was not. This can happen for two reasons:

      1. A flaw in the rule's logic. See Reporting false negatives.
      2. A bug within Semgrep itself. See the list of Semgrep issues to file a bug report.

Group and sort findings

By default, Semgrep displays your findings using the Group by Rule view. This view shows your findings grouped by the rule Semgrep used to match the code. Your findings are shown sorted by severity, but you can opt to sort by number of findings for a given rule.

For a given severity, Semgrep further sorts findings as follows:

  1. Findings generated by custom rules
  2. Findings generated by Pro rules
  3. Issue count in descending order
  4. Findings ID in ascending order

To view findings individually, click Group & sort > No grouping. Findings are displayed based on the date they were found, with the most recent finding listed at the top.

Export findings

You can export findings to a CSV file. Semgrep can export up to 10,000 most recent findings. To export more than 10,000 findings, you must use the API.

Semgrep exports all findings to the CSV file regardless of the filters you apply on the page.

Export findings by navigating to the product page and clicking the icon near the Group & Sort filters.

Click to view a description of fields included in the CSV.
FieldDescription
IdThe unique ID number of the finding.
Rule nameThe name of the rule.
ProductThe Semgrep product. Possible values are Code, Supply Chain, or Secrets.
SeverityThe finding's severity. Possible values are Critical, High, Medium, or Low.
StatusThe finding's triage status.
Assistant componentA descriptor, such as API, Payments processing, Infrastructure, that Assistant tags the finding with, based on the code's context.
Repository nameThe name of the repository where Semgrep found the finding.
Repository URLThe repository URL.
Line of code URLThe URL to the specific line of code where the finding match began. A finding may be several lines long.
Semgrep platform linkA link to the finding's Details page in Semgrep AppSec Platform.
Created atThe time the finding was created in your timezone.
Last Opened atThe time the finding was last opened.
BranchThe name of the branch where the finding was detected.
Triaged atThe most recent time that the finding was triaged.
Triage commentA triage comment created by the user.
Triage reasonThe reason why the finding was triaged, created by the user.
Rule descriptionThe description of the rule. This is the same as the rule's message key.

The following fields are exclusive to Code scans:

FieldDescription
ConfidenceThe finding's confidence. Possible values are High, Medium, or Low.
Only Semgrep Supply Chain and Code findings provide this field.
CategoryThe finding's category, such as best practices, security, or correctness.
Is pro ruleBoolean value that returns TRUE if the rule that generated the finding is a pro rule.
Assistant triage resultProvides Semgrep Assistant's assessment. Possible values are True positive or False positive. These values appear only if Assistant is enabled.
Assistant triage reasonA short AI-generated reason why Assistant thinks the finding is a true or false positive. These values appear only if Assistant is enabled.

The following fields are exclusive to Supply Chain scans:

FieldDescription
DependencyThe name of the dependency where the findings was found.
ReachabilityThe reachability status of the finding, such as Reachable, No Reachability Analysis, or Unreachable.
TransitivityStates whether the finding originates from a direct or transitive dependency.
CVEThe CVE number that the finding is assigned to.
EPSSThe EPSS score, which estimates the likelihood that a software vulnerability can be exploited in the wild.

The following fields are exclusive to Secrets scans:

FieldDescription
Secret typePossible values include AI-detected, Generic secret, Connection URI, and so on.
ValidationStates whether or not the secret was validated.
Project visibilityStates whether the project (repository) is public or private. This feature supports GitHub-hosted repositories only. It returns an Unknown value for non-GitHub SCMs.

View details about a specific finding

To view in-depth information about a specific finding, select the finding whose details you want to view. Then:

  • If the default Group by Rule is enabled, click the Details icon on the card of the finding.
  • If the No grouping view is enabled, click the header hyperlink on the card of the finding.

The finding's details page displays in-depth information about the finding. It also allows you to perform actions such as updating the finding's status as needed, viewing links to any integrations available, such as associated Jira tickets, and communicating with your team regarding the finding. For example, you can add notes to the finding that anyone with access to the finding can see. See View findings' details for more information.

How Semgrep displays findings on multiple branches

A single finding may appear in several branches. These appearances are called instances of a finding. Several instances of the same finding may differ in which line of code (LOC) they are on or in their triage state. For example, on production the finding may be on line 20, but the same finding was moved further to line 26 in feature-branch-a.

Semgrep automatically recognizes that they are fundamentally the same finding and deduplicates these instances so that you do not get an inflated count of findings per ref that the finding is present in.

By default, the Code page displays findings from the primary branches of all repositories (projects), arranged by most recent scan. You are viewing the primary branch's instance of that finding, so you may see variations in LOC or triage state when comparing the finding across branches.

When filtering by primary branch and triage status, the filters are applied based on the triage status of the finding on the primary branch. This means that on some feature branches, the instance may already be Fixed, but on the primary branch, the finding is still Open. The finding status on the primary branch is updated when the PR or MR is merged and Semgrep has scanned the code.

tip
  • If you do not see any findings, or there are zero findings after a scan has concluded, check the Projects page to view the findings count, if any, and to set a primary branch, if it is not already set.
  • The total count of findings in the Projects page is based on the primary branch.

Next steps


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