codeql Documentation

1. Project Overview & Quickstart (github/codeql) Copy Chapter

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? Copy Chapter

There is extensive documentation about the CodeQL language, writing CodeQL using the CodeQL extension for Visual Studio Code and using the CodeQL CLI.

Contributing Copy Chapter

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 Copy Chapter

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 Copy Chapter

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 Copy Section

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 Copy Section

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.

2. Official Technical Reference & Guides (github/docs) Copy Chapter

GitHub Docs

Welcome to GitHub Docs! GitHub’s documentation is open source, meaning anyone from inside or outside the company can contribute. For full contributing guidelines, visit our contributing guide.

Quick links by contributor type Copy Chapter

• Hubbers (GitHub employees): See CONTRIBUTING.md in the docs-content repository for GitHub-specific processes.

• Open source contributors: See CONTRIBUTING.md in the docs repository for a quick-start summary.

How we sync changes across Docs repositories Copy Chapter

There are two GitHub Docs repositories:

• github/docs (public): Open to external contributions

• github/docs-internal (private): For GitHub employee contributions.

The two repositories sync frequently. Content changes in one are reflected in the other. Hubbers might prefer to post in docs when working with a customer, but docs has limitations on the types of contributions it accepts to safeguard the site and our workflows. Internal contributions should usually go to docs-internal.

Important: The docs repository accepts contributions to content files (.md files in /content and select /data sections like reusables only). Infrastructure files, workflows, and site-building code are not open for external modification.

New to contributing Copy Chapter

Here are some resources to help you get started with open source contributions:

• Finding ways to contribute to open source on GitHub
• Set up Git
• GitHub flow
• Collaborating with pull requests

License Copy Chapter

This project is dual-licensed under:

• Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 - for documentation and content in the assets, content, and data folders (see LICENSE)
• MIT License - for code (see LICENSE-CODE)