Trivy Vulnerability Scanner

Core Commands

Node.js / Filesystem Scanning

# Scan current directory for vulnerabilities (package.json/package-lock.json)
trivy fs --scanners vuln .

# Include dev dependencies (devDependencies in package.json)
trivy fs --scanners vuln --include-dev-deps .

# Scan specific package-lock.json file
trivy fs --scanners vuln package-lock.json

# JSON output for CI/CD pipelines
trivy fs --scanners vuln --format json -o results.json .

# Fail on HIGH/CRITICAL only
trivy fs --scanners vuln --severity HIGH,CRITICAL .

# Scan a repository (GitHub URL)
trivy repo --scanners vuln https://github.com/org/repo

Supported Node.js files:

• package.json + package-lock.json (npm)
• yarn.lock (Yarn)
• pnpm-lock.yaml (pnpm)

Basic Image Scanning

# Scan with severity filter (recommended)
trivy image --severity HIGH,CRITICAL <image:tag>

# All severities
trivy image <image:tag>

# JSON output for automation
trivy image --format json --output results.json <image:tag>

Common Patterns

# Compare two versions
trivy image --severity HIGH,CRITICAL image:18.3.2 > v1.txt
trivy image --severity HIGH,CRITICAL image:18.4.0 > v2.txt
diff v1.txt v2.txt

# Batch scan multiple images (use provided script)
scripts/batch_scan.sh alpine:latest nginx:latest postgres:16

# Compare versions (use provided script)
scripts/compare_versions.sh public.ecr.aws/org/image 18.3.2 18.4.0 18.5.0

Output Formats

# Table (default, human-readable)
trivy image --format table <image:tag>

# JSON (machine-readable)
trivy image --format json <image:tag>

# SARIF (GitHub/GitLab integration)
trivy image --format sarif <image:tag>

Scanner Types

Use --scanners to control what Trivy scans:

# Vulnerability only (faster, recommended)
trivy image --scanners vuln <image:tag>

# Vulnerabilities + secrets
trivy image --scanners vuln,secret <image:tag>

# All scanners (vuln, secret, misconfig, license)
trivy image <image:tag>

Default: All scanners enabled. Use --scanners vuln to disable secret scanning for faster scans.

Performance Options

# Skip database update (use cached DB)
trivy image --skip-db-update <image:tag>

# Skip version check notification
trivy image --skip-version-check <image:tag>

# Disable secret scanning (faster)
trivy image --scanners vuln <image:tag>

Understanding Output

For detailed interpretation of Trivy output including status fields, severity levels, and false positives, see output_interpretation.md.

Quick reference:

• Status fixed: Patch available (check Fixed Version column)
• Status affected: No fix available yet
• Status will_not_fix: Vendor won’t patch
• False positives: Status shows fixed but CVE still appears (common with Go binaries)

Common Use Cases

Compare Vulnerabilities Across Versions

Use the provided script:

scripts/compare_versions.sh public.ecr.aws/org/image 14.4.1 15.5.4 16.5.9 17.7.10 18.0.0

Or manually:

for version in 14.4.1 15.5.4 16.5.9; do
  trivy image --severity HIGH,CRITICAL image:$version > scan-$version.txt
done

Track Specific CVEs

# Scan and grep for specific CVE
trivy image <image:tag> | grep CVE-2025-6020

# JSON query for specific CVE
trivy image --format json <image:tag> | \
  jq '.Results[].Vulnerabilities[] | select(.VulnerabilityID == "CVE-2025-6020")'

CI/CD Integration

# Fail build on HIGH/CRITICAL findings
trivy image --exit-code 1 --severity HIGH,CRITICAL <image:tag>

# Generate SARIF for GitHub
trivy image --format sarif --output trivy-results.sarif <image:tag>

Batch Scanning

For scanning multiple images efficiently:

# Use provided script (scans in parallel)
scripts/batch_scan.sh image1:tag1 image2:tag2 image3:tag3

# Configure parallelism
TRIVY_MAX_PARALLEL=10 scripts/batch_scan.sh image1 image2 image3

# Custom output directory
TRIVY_OUTPUT_DIR=./scans scripts/batch_scan.sh image1 image2

Filtering and Ignoring

# Only show vulnerabilities with fixes
trivy image --ignore-unfixed <image:tag>

# Ignore specific CVEs (.trivyignore file)
cat > .trivyignore <<EOF
CVE-2022-36633
CVE-2023-12345
EOF
trivy image <image:tag>

Best Practices

1. Always filter by severity for focused analysis: --severity HIGH,CRITICAL
2. Use JSON for automation to enable scripting and parsing
3. Disable secret scanning when not needed: --scanners vuln
4. Skip DB updates in CI/CD after initial download: --skip-db-update
5. Verify “fixed” status – Check if installed version >= fixed version (false positives common)
6. Use provided scripts for comparing versions or batch scanning
7. Document ignored CVEs in .trivyignore with comments explaining why

Troubleshooting

Slow scans:

trivy image --scanners vuln --skip-db-update <image:tag>

Too many false positives:

trivy image --ignore-unfixed <image:tag>

Database update failures:

trivy image --download-db-only

References

• Output Interpretation Guide – Detailed guide for understanding scan results
• Official Documentation
• GitHub Repository