Quickstart

AI Tools

Please refer to the Installation page to set up either the standalone binary or the Docker image of the HoundDog.ai's code scanner.

Standalone Binary

To scan a file or directory using the standalone binary:

hounddog scan [path] [options]

To see all available command-line options:

hounddog scan --help

Docker Image

To scan the current directory:

docker run --pull=always -it --rm -v <path>:/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 based on your terminal window size. Important: When running the scanner in a non-interactive environment (e.g., build pipelines), you must only use the `-t` flag.
`--rm`	No	Clean up the container after it exits.
`-v <path>:/data`	Yes	Mount the host directory `<path>` to the container’s `/data` directory, the default hardcoded path in HoundDog.ai's scanner Docker image for accessing host files during scans.
`hounddogai/hounddog`	Yes	Name of the HoundDog.ai scanner image, hosted on Docker Hub.
`hounddog scan`	Yes	Entrypoint command that scans the code mounted in the container's `/data` directory .

Use --help to display all available command-line options for hounddog scan:

docker run --rm -t hounddogai/scanner hounddog scan --help

Demonstration

To demonstrate the capabilities of the scanner, HoundDog.ai provides a test web application with deliberate security flaws. First, clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/hounddogai/hounddog-test-healthcare-app

Then scan it with the --output-format=markdown option to generate a Markdown report:

# If you are using the standalone binary: hounddog scan hounddog-test-healthcare-app --output-format=markdown # If you are using the Docker image: docker run -it --rm -v hounddog-test-healthcare-app:/data hounddogai/hounddog hounddog scan --output-format=markdown

Open the generated file hounddog-test-healthcare-app/hounddog-{timestamp}.md on your browser. We recommend using Google Chrome and the Markdown Viewer extension, with mermaid and toc settings enabled. See Markdown Report for more details.

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