Discover / Security
CodeQL
by githubCodeQL
GitHub's semantic code analysis engine. Queries code like data to find vulnerability classes.
Toolexperimental
Maturity: experimental because active but has never tagged a release. Derived from release and commit history, not a rating.
- Stars
- 9.9k
- Forks
- 2.0k
- Downloads / mo
- —
- Last commit
- 2026-07-31
- License
- MIT
- Open issues
- 1.4k
Market and trust evidence
Edition not yet matchedNo exact skills.sh identity match is available for this repository. Repository adoption and freshness remain visible above; install momentum is not inferred.
Trust analysis is a screening signal, not a security warranty. Read the ranking and trust methodology.
In practice
Written by AI from this repository’s README · medium confidenceWriting security queries against a codebase from scratch means building the language models and checks yourself.
Use it when
When you want the maintained query and library packs to run or extend CodeQL analysis on a codebase.
Not the right pick when
Not usable alone, since the CodeQL CLI and engine live in a different repository and closed source analysis needs a commercial license.
Capabilities
- standard query packs behind GitHub code scanning
- language libraries for C++, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Ruby, Rust and Swift
- queries runnable from the CodeQL CLI
- VS Code extension support with syntax highlighting and unit tests
- open to contributed queries and checks
Requirements
- CodeQL CLI or the CodeQL extension for Visual Studio Code
- separate commercial license to analyze closed source code with the CLI
Cost: Free and open source
Video walkthroughs
GitHub Dependabot, CodeQL, and other built-in sec features | Peter De Tender | Conf42 DevSecOps 2025
What's new with GitHub Copilot code review (CodeQL, agents & more)
Third-party YouTube uploads matched to this tool by title, channel and repository name on 2026-08-03. Not made, reviewed or endorsed by SkillPilot. View counts and publish months are as of the match date and the month is approximate. Nothing loads from YouTube until you press play.
What the repository ships
Has docsCI configured
Detected from the actual files in the repository root.
Tags
README
CodeQL
This open source repository contains the standard CodeQL libraries and queries that power GitHub Advanced Security and the other application security products that GitHub makes available to its customers worldwide.
How do I learn CodeQL and run queries?
There is extensive documentation about the CodeQL language, writing CodeQL using the CodeQL extension for Visual Studio Code and using the CodeQL CLI.
Contributing
We welcome contributions to our standard library and standard checks. Do you have an idea for a new check, or how to improve an existing query? Then please go ahead and open a pull request! Before you do, though, please take the time to read our contributing guidelines. You can also consult our style guides to learn how to format your code for consistency and clarity, how to write query metadata, and how to write query help documentation for your query.
For information on contributing to CodeQL documentation, see the "contributing guide" for docs.
License
The code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License by GitHub.
The CodeQL CLI (including the CodeQL engine) is hosted in a different repository and is licensed separately. If you'd like to use the CodeQL CLI to analyze closed-source code, you will need a separate commercial license; please contact us for further help.
Visual Studio Code integration
If you use Visual Studio Code to work in this repository, there are a few integration features to make development easier.
CodeQL for Visual Studio Code
You can install the CodeQL for Visual Studio Code extension to get syntax highlighting, IntelliSense, and code navigation for the QL language, as well as unit test support for testing CodeQL libraries and queries.
Tasks
The .vscode/tasks.json file defines custom tasks specific to working in this repository. To invoke one of these tasks, select the Terminal | Run Task... menu option, and then select the desired task from the dropdown. You can also invoke the Tasks: Run Task command from the command palette.