Quickstart

nyx Quickstart

Nyx is a lightweight Rust CLI vulnerability scanner with cross-language taint analysis. Use this skill when you need to:

• Scan codebases for security vulnerabilities (SAST)
• Perform taint analysis across 10 programming languages
• Integrate security scanning into CI/CD pipelines
• Use browser UI for interactive security triage
• Generate SARIF reports for GitHub Actions

Installation

cargo install nyx-scanner
nyx --version

Core Commands

Scan Current Directory

nyx scan

Default scan with balanced engine profile (AST + CFG + taint).

Scan Specific Path

nyx scan /path/to/code

Scan with Engine Profile

# Fastest: AST-only pattern matching
nyx scan --mode ast

# Default: Balanced (AST + CFG + taint)
nyx scan --mode balanced

# Most thorough: Deep analysis
nyx scan --mode deep

Scan with Output Format

# SARIF for CI/CD
nyx scan --format sarif --output results.sarif

# JSON for programmatic parsing
nyx scan --format json --output results.json

# Console output (default)
nyx scan --format console

Scan with Severity Threshold

# Fail on HIGH or CRITICAL only
nyx scan --fail-on HIGH

# Fail on MEDIUM and above
nyx scan --fail-on MEDIUM

Scan with Advanced Options

# Enable symbolic execution
nyx scan --symex

# Enable backwards taint analysis
nyx scan --backwards-analysis

# Disable indexing (slower, less memory)
nyx scan --index off

Browser UI

Start the browser UI for interactive security analysis:

nyx serve

Options:

• --port <port>: Server port (default: 9700)
• --host <host>: Server host (default: 127.0.0.1)
• --no-browser: Don't open browser automatically

# Custom port
nyx serve --port 8080

# Bind to all interfaces
nyx serve --host 0.0.0.0

# No auto-open
nyx serve --no-browser

Supported Languages

Nyx supports 10 programming languages:

• Rust
• C
• C++
• Java
• Go
• PHP
• Python
• Ruby
• TypeScript
• JavaScript

Engine Profiles

1. ast (fastest): AST-level pattern matching only
2. balanced (default): AST + CFG + taint analysis
3. deep: Most thorough analysis with all features

CI/CD Integration

GitHub Actions Example

- name: Run nyx security scan
  run: |
    cargo install nyx-scanner
    nyx scan --format sarif --output results.sarif --fail-on HIGH

- name: Upload SARIF results
  uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v2
  with:
    sarif_file: results.sarif

Key Features

• Cross-language taint analysis: Track data flow across files and languages
• AST-level pattern matching: Fast vulnerability detection
• Control-flow graph analysis: Understand code execution paths
• Cross-file taint tracking: Follow data across function boundaries
• Browser UI: Interactive triage with flow visualizer
• SARIF output: Standard format for CI/CD integration
• Persistent triage state: Save and restore analysis results

Common Use Cases

Quick security check before commit

nyx scan --mode ast --fail-on CRITICAL

Full security audit

nyx scan --mode deep --format sarif --output audit.sarif

Interactive investigation

nyx serve
# Open http://localhost:9700 in browser

CI pipeline integration

nyx scan --format sarif --output results.sarif --fail-on HIGH

Tips

• Use --mode ast for fast pre-commit checks
• Use --mode balanced for regular development
• Use --mode deep for security audits
• Enable --symex for more precise results (slower)
• Use browser UI for complex vulnerability investigation
• Set appropriate --fail-on threshold for your CI pipeline