The VulnCheck CLI

Access VulnCheck intelligence through CLI across MacOS, Linux and Windows platforms. Browse VulnCheck indices, manage backups and access VulnCheck IP Intelligence offline using a terminal.

How Can I Access VulnCheck CLI?

VulnCheck's CLI is an open source project available on GitHub: https://github.com/vulncheck-oss/cli

Installing the VulnCheck CLI

You can easily install VulnCheck CLI using an install script. Choose the script and method that matches your operating system:

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vulncheck-oss/cli/main/install.sh | bash

iex ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/vulncheck-oss/cli/main/install.ps1'))

More detailed installation instructions are available on GitHub

Configuring VulnCheck Access

1. From the terminal authenticate your VulnCheck account by running:

vulncheck auth login

1. Select to Login with a browser or Paste an authentication token to complete authentication

How do I use VulnCheck CLI?

VulnCheck Available Commands

Browse/list indices

Browse/list an index

Download a backup

Request vulnerabilities related to a CPE

Request vulnerabilities related to a PURL

Scan a repository for vulnerabilities

Scripting and Automation (v1.0.0+)

Starting with vulncheck 1.0.0 the CLI ships a stable contract for scripts and AI agents. Full reference on GitHub, quick summary:

• --json is a global flag on every command. Stdout carries only the JSON payload; info, progress, spinners, and warnings go to stderr. vulncheck <cmd> --json | jq always works.
• Exit codes are meaningful: 0 success, 1 internal, 2 validation, 3 auth, 4 not_found, 5 rate_limited, 6 network, 130 cancelled.
• Errors are structured: in --json mode, failures emit {"schema_version":1,"error":{"code":"...","message":"...","http_status":...}} on stdout. Match on .error.code.
• --no-interactive refuses prompts (implied by --json, non-TTY, or CI=1). Interactive commands fail fast with exit 2.
• vulncheck commands dumps the whole command tree as JSON for capability discovery — probe without parsing --help.

vulncheck auth status --json | jq -e '.authenticated'   # exit 0 iff authenticated
vulncheck version --json | jq -r .version               # probe CLI version
vulncheck commands | jq '.root.subcommands[].name'      # discover commands

How Can I Contribute to VulnCheck CLI?

Community contributions in the form of issues and features are welcome and can be submitted on GitHub. When submitting issues, please ensure they include sufficient information to reproduce the problem. For new features, provide a reasonable use case, appropriate unit tests, and ensure compliance with required checks in our automated CI/CD pipeline without generating any complaints.