Security Agent

| Security Agent scans a committed codebase for code vulnerabilities beyond the current pull request diff. Results appear in the CodeRabbit app under Security > Agent Findings, where you can inspect evidence, filter findings, export results, and start supported fixes. Use Security Agent when you want a repository-level view of application security risk. It runs against the repository’s configured scan branch, or the provider default branch when no custom branch is selected.

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How Security Agent works

Security Agent runs a multi-stage pipeline rather than matching fixed rules against a single file or diff:

• Map — CodeRabbit builds a model of the repository so it can reason across files and services, not just within one file.
• Investigate — Agents examine likely vulnerable code paths and infrastructure misconfigurations, then trace how data flows through the codebase.
• Verify — A separate verification step reopens the cited code paths and infrastructure evidence, then rejects speculative, test-only, dead-code, and unreachable cases before a finding is surfaced.

Deterministic scanners are used only as hints into this pipeline. Every finding is adjudicated against code evidence before it reaches you, which is why Security Agent can surface issues that rule-based tools cannot express — such as authorization bypass, IDOR, and business-logic flaws — with less noise.

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What Security Agent scans for

Security Agent looks for practical code-level vulnerabilities across the selected repository. Findings can include issues such as injection, authorization bypass, IDOR, broken authentication, CSRF, sensitive data exposure, information disclosure, XSS, SSRF, open redirects, insecure deserialization, CORS issues, security misconfiguration, path traversal, weak cryptography, denial of service, LLM security risks, and other code security problems. LLM and AI application risks include prompt injection, improper output handling, and excessive agency. Full-codebase scans also cover infrastructure-as-code misconfigurations in Terraform, OpenTofu, Kubernetes, Helm, Dockerfile, Containerfile, Bicep, CloudFormation, ARM templates, and Compose files. This coverage runs automatically without customer configuration. Repositories composed only of infrastructure files enter the same Map, Investigate, and Verify pipeline. Each accepted finding is grounded in code evidence. When available, CodeRabbit shows:

• Category and severity
• Repository, file path, and line range
• CWE
• Description and recommendation
• Reachability: External, Internal, Unreachable, or Unknown
• Reachability call stack when CodeRabbit can trace a path from an entry point to the risky code
• Inline code context or a permalink to the scanned commit
• Status and fix status

Reachability affects how severity is presented. External and Unknown reachability leave the original severity unchanged, Internal reachability lowers severity by one level, and Unreachable findings are capped at low severity. Unknown means CodeRabbit could not determine the path confidently enough, not that the issue is exploitable.

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Run a scan

You can start a Security Agent scan from the Security area in CodeRabbit. If one selected scan target is already running or blocked, other selected targets can still dispatch.

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Scan status and activity

Each scan target moves through pending, running, completed, and failed states. A scan that runs for too long is marked failed with a message telling you it timed out or was interrupted, so you can run it again. completed describes the execution envelope only. A completed Deep Scan full-codebase scan can still show partial coverage and follow-up work when repository traversal or the coverage analysis reaches a file cap. The activity log records each run’s target, scan ID, status, duration, repository, who triggered it, and when. Completed and failed activity entries link to the matching repository scan tab: completed runs open that scan’s results, while failed runs open the failed scan’s status.

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Configure repository scan settings

Repository security settings control which branch Security Agent scans, which code paths it skips, and whether scans run on a schedule.

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Scan branch

For GitHub repositories, choose the branch CodeRabbit should scan. Provider default follows the repository default branch. Selecting the default branch clears the custom branch setting. If a configured branch is deleted, CodeRabbit warns that future scans will fail until you select another branch or return to the provider default.

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Path exclusions

Use Path Exclude filters to skip code paths that should not count toward Security Agent scans.

• Add one repository-relative path or glob per line.
• You can add up to 100 excluded paths per repository.
• Each excluded path can be up to 512 characters.
• Absolute paths, Windows absolute paths, parent traversal, and control characters are rejected.
• Backslashes are normalized to /, leading ./ is removed, and duplicate entries are ignored.

The settings page also exposes path exclusions for Secrets scans. Dependency and SBOM path filters are not currently exposed in the customer-facing settings page.

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Repository context

Repository context is optional architecture and business-domain background that helps Security Agent interpret the repository during full-codebase scans. From Security, select Repositories, open the repository’s settings, and enter up to 4,000 characters in the Context field under AI Deep Scan. The saved context applies to every subsequent scan for that repository across the Map, Investigate, and Verify phases. Repository context is available for supported repositories to users who can edit Security Agent repository settings. Leaving the field empty removes the stored context. Edits are saved and reset alongside the repository’s other security settings. Context informs how Security Agent interprets the code, but it cannot override scan instructions. Security-relevant claims are still validated against the code before findings are reported.

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Recurring schedules

Set a recurring full scan schedule per repository when you want CodeRabbit to scan on specific days and times. Schedules use 24-hour time, an IANA timezone, selectable days of the week, and selectable scan types: Code, Dependencies, SBOM, and Secrets. Each scheduled scan target dispatches independently. If one target is already active, CodeRabbit skips that target while other runnable targets can still start. Automatically dispatched full scans follow the same authorization and charging behavior described in Availability and limits. A scheduled full scan does not run if its estimated code-scan credit charge exceeds the remaining monthly allowance or cap.

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Security repository Learnings

The Learnings tab in a repository’s Security settings lists saved accepted-risk guidance for Security Agent scans. Each entry shows its guidance text, file scope, and last-updated time. Repository-wide guidance displays All files as its scope. You can view, edit, and delete saved entries. The tab shows up to 100 of the newest entries for each repository. These Security repository Learnings are separate from the Learnings used in pull request reviews.

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Scan Git History for secrets

Scan Git History is available under the Secrets Scanner repository settings at Security > Repositories > repository settings. It applies to secrets scans and is disabled by default. When enabled, Secrets Scanner inspects commits reachable from the configured scan branch and surfaces credentials that existed in earlier commits but are absent from the latest code. Enabling it can materially increase scan duration. Historical secret findings show the source commit where the secret was detected. Code context loads from that commit rather than the latest scan state.

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The Security area

The Security section in the CodeRabbit sidebar organizes the Security Suite into these pages:

• Overview — a dashboard of your latest security posture.
• Repositories — repository scan settings, including branch, path exclusions, and schedules.
• Learnings — saved accepted-risk guidance for Security Agent scans in each repository.
• Agent Findings — code vulnerability findings from Security Agent.
• Dependencies — vulnerable dependency findings.
• SBOM — resolved component inventory and license visibility.
• Secrets Detection — leaked secrets and hardcoded credential findings.
• PR Findings — security issues raised during pull request reviews.
• Activity Log — a record of scan runs.

The Overview dashboard summarizes your latest known security posture across Agent Findings, Secrets, Dependencies, and SBOM. It shows:

• Summary cards with finding counts, affected repository count, and critical/high totals for each scan type.
• A Security Trend chart of findings by severity over time, filterable by repository and finding type across 30-, 90-, and 180-day ranges.
• Latest Findings, the most recent critical and high Agent Findings with severity, category, repository, and file location.
• Highest-Risk Repositories, ranked by critical and high findings.

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Work with Agent Findings

The Agent Findings page gives you a triage surface for code findings from completed scans. You can:

• Filter by repository, severity, category, and search text
• Open a finding drawer with evidence, recommendation, reachability, code context, and available actions
• Open Share, then choose For humans to copy the existing direct link to the finding to your clipboard, or For agents to copy self-contained, agent-ready Markdown to your clipboard
• Ignore a vulnerability warning with an optional accepted-risk note and scope
• Export findings as CSV, JSON, or SARIF
• Start Fix with AI for supported vulnerability findings
• View a generated fix pull request when one exists
• Retry failed fixes

For agents copies an agent-ready Markdown summary with the repository and relevant details such as severity or status, location, advisory details, description, and recommendation when present, so you can hand off to your coding agent without including the CodeRabbit app URL; it is available for code vulnerability, dependency vulnerability, and secret findings in their respective finding drawers. Ignoring a finding changes its status. For code vulnerabilities, you can optionally save accepted-risk guidance with one of three scopes: Auto, Current file, or Entire repository. Auto infers whether the guidance should apply to the finding’s file or the whole repository and defaults to the current file when the scope is unclear. Guidance capture does not apply when ignoring dependency or secret findings. The finding is still ignored if saving the optional guidance fails. In later scans, Security Agent reuses saved guidance only to suppress equivalent findings when both the behavior and scope match. File-scoped guidance applies only to the exact repository-relative file, while repository-scoped guidance applies across the entire repository. A later scan can reopen an ignored finding when the saved guidance does not apply. Fix with AI cannot start when another fix for the same finding is already pending or running, and is available only for findings from the current scan commit; historical findings remain available for investigation but cannot use Fix with AI. It opens a pull request for supported fixes; CodeRabbit does not merge those changes automatically.

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Related Security scans

The Security area also includes other committed-codebase scan targets. You can start them from the same run dialog, but each has its own source and findings surface.

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Secrets verification status

Secrets Detection assigns a verification status to help you prioritize credentials confirmed to be live while keeping unverified findings visible.

• Verified Active The scan confirmed that the credential is currently live.
• Verified Inactive The credential is invalid or has been revoked.
• Unknown Verification data is missing, unrecognized, or inconclusive. Existing findings without verification data also appear as Unknown.

In the Secrets findings list, you can filter findings by Verified Active, Verified Inactive, and Unknown verification status. Agent Findings can be exported as CSV, JSON, and SARIF. SBOM exports support CycloneDX JSON, CycloneDX XML, SPDX JSON, and CSV. Secrets Detection appears as a separate scan surface so secret triage stays separate from Agent Findings. Fix with AI also supports eligible dependency and secrets findings in their respective scan surfaces.

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Availability and limits

Security Agent is available for GitHub (including GitHub Enterprise), GitLab (including self-hosted GitLab), Azure DevOps, and Bitbucket Cloud repositories. Repository security settings, code context links, and Fix with AI are available on these supported providers. Bitbucket Data Center is not currently supported. Some capabilities remain GitHub-only: selecting a custom scan branch, scheduling full scans, and scanning Git history for secrets. New workspaces include a free trial with 10 code scans. Before a full code scan (Deep Scan) subject to usage billing runs, CodeRabbit authorizes it by checking the estimated code-scan credit charge against the remaining monthly allowance or cap. Pending and running full scans reserve their estimated code-scan credit charge against the remaining monthly allowance or cap, so a new scan does not run if completed charges plus those reservations plus its estimate would exceed that limit. If the estimate exceeds the remaining allowance or cap, the scan does not run and a message indicates that the estimated Deep Scan charge is too high. Code-scan credits are charged only after the scan completes successfully. Security Agent does not prove that a repository has no vulnerabilities. It reports findings that CodeRabbit can support with code evidence, and it preserves Unknown reachability when CodeRabbit cannot determine a path confidently enough. Code-scan credit estimates are estimates. They account for the effective scan branch and configured code path exclusions, but they should not be treated as a final invoice.

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What’s next