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HoundDog.ai Docs

Quickstart

Follow the CLI Scanner page to set up either the standalone binary or the Docker image of the HoundDog.ai code scanner.

Standalone Binary

Section titled “Standalone Binary”

To scan a file or directory (defaults to the current directory):

bash
hounddog scan [path] [options]

To see the available command-line options:

bash
hounddog scan --help

Docker Image

Section titled “Docker Image”

To scan a directory:

bash
docker run --pull=always -it --rm -v /path/to/repo:/data hounddogai/hounddog hounddog scan [options]

Let’s break down the command above:

Argument / Option Required Description
docker run Yes Start a new Docker container.
--pull=always No Always pull the latest version of the Docker image.
-it No Create an interactive session and attach a pseudo-TTY to enable colored output and proper rendering for your terminal size. Important: in a non-interactive environment (for example, build pipelines), use only the -t flag.
--rm No Clean up the container after it exits.
-v /path/to/repo:/data Yes Mount the host directory into the container’s /data directory, the default scan path inside the HoundDog.ai Docker image.
hounddogai/hounddog Yes Name of the HoundDog.ai scanner image, hosted on Docker Hub.
hounddog scan Yes The scan command, which scans the code mounted at /data.

Demonstration

Section titled “Demonstration”

To see the privacy scanner in action, scan HoundDog.ai’s Python test repository, which contains deliberate privacy flaws:

bash
# Clone the test repository
git clone https://github.com/hounddogai/hounddog-test-python-app


# Scan the test repository
hounddog scan hounddog-test-python-app

Useful variations:

bash
# Show detailed dataflow traces
hounddog scan hounddog-test-python-app --trace


# Only show critical and medium severity dataflows
hounddog scan hounddog-test-python-app --severity=critical,medium


# Generate a Markdown report
hounddog scan hounddog-test-python-app --output-format=markdown --output-path=report.md

To see the API and service context across a polyglot codebase, scan the monorepo test repository, which spans gRPC and Thrift services in Python, TypeScript, C#, Java, and Go:

bash
git clone https://github.com/hounddogai/hounddog-test-monorepo
hounddog scan hounddog-test-monorepo

Alongside the dataflow results, the scan prints a service catalog for each protocol, resolving every service, its method definitions, and the servers and clients that implement and consume it.

Next Steps

Section titled “Next Steps”