Dependabot quickstart guide

Find and fix vulnerable dependencies you rely on with Dependabot.

Wer kann dieses Feature verwenden?

Dependabot alerts sind für unternehmenseigene und benutzereigene Repositorien verfügbar.

In diesem Artikel

About Dependabot

This quickstart guide walks you through setting up and enabling Dependabot, viewing Dependabot alerts, and updating your repository to use a secure version of the dependency.

Dependabot besteht aus drei verschiedenen Features, mit denen du Abhängigkeiten verwalten kannst:

  • Dependabot alerts informiert dich über Sicherheitsrisiken in den Abhängigkeiten, die du in deinem Repository verwendest.
  • Dependabot security updates löst automatisch Pull Requests aus, um von dir verwendete Abhängigkeiten zu aktualisieren, die bekannte Sicherheitsrisiken aufweisen.
  • Dependabot version updates löst automatisch Pull Requests aus, um deine Abhängigkeiten auf dem neuesten Stand zu halten.

Prerequisites

For the purpose of this guide, we're going to use a demo repository to illustrate how Dependabot finds vulnerabilities in dependencies, where you can see Dependabot alerts on GitHub, and how you can explore, fix, or dismiss these alerts.

You need to start by forking the demo repository.

  1. Navigate to https://github.com/dependabot/demo.
  2. At the top of the page, on the right, click Fork.
  3. Select an owner (you can select your GitHub personal account) and type a repository name. For more information about forking repositories, see Ein Repository forken.
  4. Click Create fork.

Enabling Dependabot for your repository

You need to follow the steps below on the repository you forked in Prerequisites.

  1. Navigieren Sie auf GitHub zur Hauptseite des Repositorys.

  2. Klicke unter dem Repositorynamen auf Settings. Wenn die Registerkarte „Einstellungen“ nicht angezeigt wird, wähle im Dropdownmenü die Option Einstellungen aus.

    Screenshot eines Repositoryheaders mit den Registerkarten. Die Registerkarte „Einstellungen“ ist dunkelorange umrandet.

  3. Klicke im Abschnitt „Security“ der Randleiste auf Advanced Security.

  4. Under "Dependabot", click Enable for Dependabot alerts, Dependabot security updates, and Dependabot version updates.

  5. If you clicked Enable for Dependabot version updates, you can edit the default dependabot.yml configuration file that GitHub creates for you in the /.github directory of your repository. To enable Dependabot version updates for your repository, you typically configure this file to suit your needs by editing the default file, and committing your changes. You can refer to the snippet provided in Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Versionsupdates for an example.

Hinweis

If the dependency graph is not already enabled for the repository, GitHub will enable it automatically when you enable Dependabot.

For more information about configuring each of these Dependabot features, see Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Warnungen, Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Sicherheitsupdates, and Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Versionsupdates.

Viewing Dependabot alerts for your repository

If Dependabot alerts are enabled for a repository, you can view Dependabot alerts on the "Security" tab for the repository. You can use the forked repository that you enabled Dependabot alerts on in the previous section.

  1. Navigieren Sie auf GitHub zur Hauptseite des Repositorys.

  2. Klicke unter dem Repositorynamen auf Security. Wenn die Registerkarte „Security“ nicht angezeigt wird, klicke im Dropdownmenü auf Security.

    Screenshot eines Repositoryheaders mit den Registerkarten. Die Registerkarte „Sicherheit“ ist dunkelorange umrandet.

  3. Klicke auf der Randleiste der Sicherheitsübersicht auf Dependabot . Wenn diese Option fehlt, bedeutet das, dass du keinen Zugriff auf die Sicherheitswarnungen hast und dir Zugriff gewährt werden muss. Weitere Informationen findest du unter Verwalten von Sicherheits- und Analyseeinstellungen für dein Repository.

    Screenshot der Sicherheitsübersicht mit dunkelorange umrandeter Registerkarte „Dependabot“.

  4. Review the open alerts on the Dependabot alerts page. By default, the page displays the Open tab, listing the open alerts. (You'll be able to view any closed alerts by clicking Closed.)

    Screenshot showing the list of Dependabot alerts for the demo repository.

    You can filter Dependabot alerts in the list, using a variety of filters or labels. For more information, see Anzeigen und Aktualisieren von Dependabot-Warnungen. You can also use Dependabot auto-triage rules to filter out false positive alerts or alerts you're not interested in. For more information, see Über Auto-Triage-Regeln von Dependabot.

  5. Click the "Command Injection in lodash" alert on the javascript/package-lock.json file. The details page for the alert will show the following information (note that some information may not apply to all alerts):

    • Whether Dependabot created a pull request that will fix the vulnerability. You can review the suggested security update by clicking Review security update.
    • Package involved
    • Affected versions
    • Patched version
    • Brief description of the vulnerability

    Screenshot of the detailed page of an alert in the demo repository, showing the main information.

  6. Optionally, you can also explore the information on the right-side of the page. Some of the information shown in the screenshot may not apply to every alert.

    • Severity
    • CVSS metrics: We use CVSS levels to assign severity levels. For more information, see Informationen zu GitHub Advisory Database.
    • Tags
    • Weaknesses: List of CWEs related to the vulnerability, if applicable
    • CVE ID: Unique CVE identifier for the vulnerability, if applicable
    • GHSA ID: Unique identifier of the corresponding advisory on the GitHub Advisory Database. For more information, see Informationen zu GitHub Advisory Database.
    • Option to navigate to the advisory on the GitHub Advisory Database
    • Option to see all of your repositories that are affected by this vulnerability
    • Option to suggest improvements for this advisory on the GitHub Advisory Database

    Screenshot of the detailed page of an alert in the demo repository, showing the information displayed on the right-side of the page.

For more information about viewing, prioritizing, and sorting Dependabot alerts, see Anzeigen und Aktualisieren von Dependabot-Warnungen.

Fixing or dismissing a Dependabot alert

You can fix or dismiss Dependabot alerts on GitHub. Let's continue to use the forked repository as an example, and the "Command Injection in lodash" alert described in the previous section.

  1. Navigate to the Dependabot alerts tab for the repository. For more information, see the Viewing Dependabot alerts for your repository section above.
  2. Click an alert.
  3. Click the "Command Injection in lodash" alert on the javascript/package-lock.json file.
  4. Review the alert. You can:

    • Review the suggested security update by clicking Review security update. This will open the pull request generated by Dependabot with the security fix.

      Screenshot of the pull request generated by Dependabot to fix the security vulnerability highlighted by the selected alert.

      • On the pull request description, you can click Commits to explore the commits included in the pull request.
      • You can also click Dependabot commands and options to learn about the commands that you can use to interact with the pull request.
      • When you're ready to update your dependency and resolve the vulnerability, merge the pull request.

    • If you decide that you want to dismiss the alert

      • Go back to the alert details page.

      • On the top-right corner, click Dismiss alert.

        Screenshot of the alert details page with the Dismiss alert button, dropdown menu options, and dismissal comment box outlined in orange.

      • Select a reason for dismissing the alert.

      • Optionally, add a dismissal comment. The dismissal comment will be added to the alert timeline and can be used as justification during auditing and reporting.

      • Click Dismiss alert. The alert won't appear anymore in the Open tab of the alert list, and you are able to view it in the Closed tab.

For more information about reviewing and updating Dependabot alerts, see Anzeigen und Aktualisieren von Dependabot-Warnungen.

Troubleshooting

You may need to do some troubleshooting if:

  • Dependabot is blocked from creating a pull request to fix an alert, or
  • The information reported by Dependabot is not what you expect.

For more information, see Problembehandlung bei Dependabot-Fehlern and Problembehandlung bei der Erkennung von anfälligen Abhängigkeiten, respectively.

Next steps

For more information about configuring Dependabot updates, see Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Sicherheitsupdates and Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Versionsupdates.

For more information about configuring Dependabot for an organization, see Konfigurieren von Dependabot-Warnungen.

For more information about viewing pull requests opened by Dependabot, see Verwalten von Pull Requests für Abhängigkeitsupdates.

For more information about the security advisories that contribute to Dependabot alerts, see Durchsuchen von Sicherheitsempfehlungen in der GitHub Advisory Database.

For more information about configuring notifications about Dependabot alerts, see Konfigurieren von Benachrichtigungen für Dependabot-Warnungen.