Dismiss Alerts Action

The dismiss alerts action dismisses code scanning alerts based on the suppression property in the SARIF file.

There are two required input fields for this action:

• sarif-upload-id - the SARIF identifier
• sarif-file - the location of the SARIF file

High Level Architecture

The suppressions[] object in the sarif is used to create a list of suppressed alerts. The API's are used to retrieve a list of already dismissed alerts. These two lists are mapped using the alert identifier (rule and location). A comparison is done between these lists and any alert that has not already been dismissed is updated with a PATCH request using the github/alertUrl property. The alert state is updated to dismissed with the dismissed reason being won't fix and the dismissed comment being Suppressed via SARIF. Vice versa, any alerts that are dismissed with a comment Suppressed via SARIF in the Code Scanning UI are re-opened, if they are no longer marked as suppressed in the SARIF file.

Getting Started

CodeQL populates the suppression property in its SARIF output based on the results of alert-suppression queries. A user can provide their own custom alert-suppression query, or use the ones that we provide (//lgtm or //codeql style comments).

Example - CodeQL

name: "CodeQL Advanced"

on:
  push:
    branches: [main]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: "31 7 * * 3"
jobs:
  analyze:
    name: Analyze (${{ matrix.language }})
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      security-events: write
      packages: read
      actions: read
      contents: read

    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        include:
        - language: java-kotlin
          build-mode: none
          query: codeql/java-queries:AlertSuppression.ql        

    steps:
    - name: Checkout repository
      uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Initialize CodeQL
      uses: github/codeql-action/init@v3
      with:
        languages: ${{ matrix.language }}
        build-mode: ${{ matrix.build-mode }}
        packs: ${{ matrix.query }}

    - name: Perform CodeQL Analysis
      # define an 'id' for the analysis step
      id: analyze
      uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v2
      with:
        category: "/language:${{matrix.language}}"
        # define the output folder for SARIF files
        output: sarif-results
        
    - name: Dismiss alerts
      if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
      uses: advanced-security/dismiss-alerts@v2
      with:
         # specify a 'sarif-id' and 'sarif-file'
        sarif-id: ${{ steps.analyze.outputs.sarif-id }}
        sarif-file: sarif-results/${{ matrix.language }}.sarif
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}

Third party produced SARIF file

The dismiss-alerts action can be used with SARIF files from third party providers.

on:
  push:

jobs:
  check-codeql-versions:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest

    permissions:
      security-events: write

    steps:
    - name: Checkout code
      uses: actions/checkout@v3
    
    - name: Run SAST scan
      run: sast-scan.sh --output=scan-results.sarif
      
    - name: Upload scan results
      # define an 'id' for the upload step
      id: upload
      uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v2
      with:
        # specify the SARIF file to upload
        sarif_file: scan-results.sarif
        wait-for-processing: true

    - name: Dismiss alerts
      if: github.ref == 'refs/heads/main'
      uses: advanced-security/dismiss-alerts@v1
      with:
        # specify a 'sarif-id' and 'sarif-file'
        sarif-id: ${{ steps.upload.outputs.sarif-id }}
        sarif-file: scan-results.sarif
      env:
        GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ github.token }}        

Features and Limitations

• This action should run only on the default branch as the dismissal status of an alert is a global property. If this action is run on a push event to a feature branch or pull request then the suppressed alerts will also be dismissed on the default branch.
• When a suppression comment is added on the line that contains an alert then this alert will be closed and a duplicate alert will be marked as fixed. This is because code scanning uses the hash of the alert's line contents as the unique identifier. The inserted suppression comment changes the contents of the line, and therefore also the hash of the alert. Since the alert hash no longer matches the original alert is considered fixed and a new alert is created in its place. The new alert is immediately marked as dismissed as a result of the suppression comment. To avoid this problem it is recommended to use a suppression style that allows placing suppression markers on the line before an alert.