Quickstart: Coverity Bridge CLI in an Azure DevOps pipeline

As an alternative to the Black Duck Security Scan Extension, the Bridge CLI can be downloaded and directly executed in a Azure DevOps pipeline. It has all the functionality of the plugin, but requires an additional step to download the Bridge CLI.

To use Bridge CLI directly from a pipeline, the correct Bridge CLI Coverity parameters must be passed directly inside the workflow. Furthermore, appropriate access credentials are required to download and use it. Consult the overview page for further details and instructions on use.

Note: The Black Duck Security Scan Extension (recommended) can be used for pipelines instead of Bridge CLI by following the quickstart guide. The Black Duck Security Scan Extension has equivalent functionality and handles the Bridge CLI download and execution automatically.

To discover more about the Black Duck Security Scan Extension and what it can do, take a look at the overview page.

Prerequisites

The following reading is recommended before starting this quickstart:
The built-in Azure DevOps System Access Token is required to allow the pipeline to inject Pull Request review comments. Ensure that Contribute to pull requests, Create branch and Delete or disable repository are set to Allow for the build service user in Project > Project Settings > Repository > Security
For security reasons, it is advisable to use Azure DevOps variables or variable groups to store credentials and access tokens.

Add the following variables in a variable group or pipeline variables (Pipelines > Library > Variable groups):

Variable	Type	Description	Example
`COVERITY_URL`	Variable	Coverity Connect Server URL	`https://coverity.example.com`
`COV_USER`	Secret Variable	Coverity Connect Username	`REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_USERNAME`
`COVERITY_PASSPHRASE`	Secret Variable	Coverity Connect Password or Access Token	`REPLACE_WITH_YOUR_PASSWORD`
`BRIDGECLI_LINUX64`	Variable	Bridge CLI download URL for Linux	https://repo.blackduck.com/artifactory/bds-integrations-release/com/blackduck/integration/bridge/binaries/bridge-cli-bundle/latest/bridge-cli-bundle-linux64.zip

Coverity requires additional configuration for compiled languages. For languages that use a build system (such as C++, Java, etc.), Coverity must be configured with build and clean commands to capture and analyze the build.

The instructions below use the Bridge COVERITY_BUILD_COMMAND and COVERITY_CLEAN_COMMAND environment variables to specify the build and clean commands.
See Using Bridge With Compiled Languages and the Coverity section in Client scan tool parameters for an overview of the various methods available for configuring Bridge CLI to integrate with Coverity to capture and analyze the build for compiled languages.

Instructions

Follow the steps below to configure an Azure DevOps pipeline that invokes Bridge CLI for full scans and Pull Request scans:

Create the azure-pipelines.yml containing the following pipeline:

Note: For compiled languages, uncomment the following and modify with appropriate settings for the target language:

Install JDK step
Maven Build Step
Build/clean command environment variables (BRIDGE_COVERITY_BUILD_COMMAND and BRIDGE_COVERITY_CLEAN_COMMAND).


trigger:
- main
- develop
pool:
  vmImage: ubuntu-latest
variables:
  - group: cnc.variable.group
steps:
# - task: JavaToolInstaller@0
#   displayName: 'Install JDK'
#   inputs:
#     versionSpec: 21
#     jdkArchitectureOption: x64
#     jdkSourceOption: PreInstalled
# - task: Maven@4
#   displayName: 'Maven Build'
#   inputs:
#   options: '-B -DskipTests'
- bash: |
    set -ex
    curl -fLsS -o bridge.zip $BRIDGECLI_LINUX64 && unzip -qo -d $(Agent.TempDirectory) bridge.zip && rm -f bridge.zip
    $(Agent.TempDirectory)/bridge-cli-bundle-linux64/bridge-cli --stage connect
  env:
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_URL: $(COVERITY_URL)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_USER_NAME: $(COV_USER)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_USER_PASSWORD: $(COVERITY_PASSPHRASE)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_PROJECT_NAME: $(Build.Repository.Name)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_STREAM_NAME: $(Build.Repository.Name)-$(Build.SourceBranchName)
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_LOCAL: true
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_POLICY_VIEW: 'Outstanding Issues'
    ### COVERITY: Build commands for compiled languages (uncomment and configure for compiled languages)
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_BUILD_COMMAND: mvn -B -DskipTests package
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_CLEAN_COMMAND: mvn -B clean
  displayName: 'Coverity Full Scan'
  condition: not(eq(variables['Build.Reason'], 'PullRequest'))
- bash: |
    set -ex
    curl -fLsS -o bridge.zip $BRIDGECLI_LINUX64 && unzip -qo -d $(Agent.TempDirectory) bridge.zip && rm -f bridge.zip
    $(Agent.TempDirectory)/bridge-cli-bundle-linux64/bridge-cli --stage connect
  env:
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_URL: $(COVERITY_URL)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_USER_NAME: $(COV_USER)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_USER_PASSWORD: $(COVERITY_PASSPHRASE)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_PROJECT_NAME: $(Build.Repository.Name)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_STREAM_NAME: $(Build.Repository.Name)-$(System.PullRequest.targetBranchName)
    BRIDGE_COVERITY_PRCOMMENT_ENABLED: true
    ## Use the parameter below to add comments for issues filtered
    ## by impact. Default is High if unset
    ## NOTE: Issues matching BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_POLICY_VIEW are ignored if set
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_PRCOMMENT_IMPACTS: 'High'

    ### COVERITY: Build commands for compiled languages (uncomment and configure for compiled languages)
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_BUILD_COMMAND: mvn -B -DskipTests package
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_CLEAN_COMMAND: mvn -B clean
    BRIDGE_AZURE_USER_TOKEN: $(System.AccessToken)
    BRIDGE_AZURE_API_URL: "https://dev.azure.com"
    BRIDGE_AZURE_ORGANIZATION_NAME: blackduck
    BRIDGE_AZURE_REPOSITORY_NAME: $(Build.Repository.Name)
    BRIDGE_AZURE_PROJECT_NAME: $(Build.Repository.Name)
    BRIDGE_AZURE_REPOSITORY_BRANCH_NAME: $(System.PullRequest.SourceBranch)
    BRIDGE_AZURE_REPOSITORY_PULL_NUMBER: $(System.PullRequest.PullRequestId)
    # BRIDGE_COVERITY_LOCAL: true
  displayName: 'Coverity PR Scan'
  condition: eq(variables['Build.Reason'], 'PullRequest')
- task: ArchiveFiles@2
  displayName: 'Copy Log Files'
  condition: succeededOrFailed()
  enabled: false
  inputs:
    rootFolderOrFile: .bridge
    includeRootFolder: false
    archiveFile: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)/bridge-logs.zip'
- task: PublishBuildArtifacts@1
  displayName: 'Publish Log Files'
  condition: succeededOrFailed()
  enabled: false
  inputs:
    PathtoPublish: '$(Build.ArtifactStagingDirectory)'
    ArtifactName: 'logs'

Note: For deployments with scan_services disabled the BRIDGE_COVERITY_LOCAL environment variable should be uncommented. Subsequently, the full Coverity client will be used to enable a local analysis to be performed with the full toolkit. This will override the default behaviour that uses the Coverity thin client to capture and upload artifacts, with analysis being performed on the server.

In the example above it can be observed that the pipeline downloads and executes the Bridge CLI directly for running full scans and Pull Request scans.

A full scan is performed when code is pushed or merged to the main or develop branches. The BRIDGE_COVERITY_CONNECT_POLICY_VIEW parameter is configured to break the build if new or outstanding issues are detected as defined by the Outstanding Issues policy view (see View Management for details).

For Pull Requests targeting those branches, Bridge CLI is invoked directly to perform a Pull Request scan. New issues detected on the feature branch are added as Pull Request comments using the built-in Azure DevOps access token. Uncomment the BRIDGE_COVERITY_PRCOMMENT_IMPACTS environment variable to filter comments by impact level, with a default of "high" if unset.

The Coverity project and stream are automatically derived from built-in Azure DevOps environment variables. The Coverity stream is named using the format repository-name-branch-name and stores a snapshot of the issues identified during the scan, ready for review in Coverity Connect.

Optional log archiving and publishing artifact tasks are included but disabled by default. Enable these tasks for troubleshooting by setting their enabled property to true.

Run scans
Once the workflow is saved:
1. Trigger a full scan: Push changes to a monitored branch (e.g., main or develop).
2. Enable Pull Request scanning: Create a Pull Request targeting that branch. Pull Request scans will run for each push to the feature branch.
3. Review results: Check for security scan comments added to the Pull Request.
Example review comment:

Troubleshooting and support

If a pipeline error is encountered similar to the example below, then the BRIDGE_COVERITY_LOCAL environment variable should be uncommented in the quickstart code example.

Attention: ERROR: Failed to retrieve tool information details: Fetch tool information: received unexpected response status code '500' from Connect API

In this scenario either scan services are not enabled or a Coverity version prior to 2022.3 is deployed. The default behavior is that the pipeline uses the Coverity thin client to upload artifacts, with the analysis performed at the server. Setting the BRIDGE_COVERITY_LOCAL environment variable to true enables the full analysis at the client. Subsequently, the scan and analysis will be performed locally by the workflow. For further details relating to the different Coverity deployment models supported, please refer to Coverity Deployment Architecture.

Quickstart: Coverity Bridge CLI in an Azure DevOps pipeline

Bridge CLI Guide

Prerequisites

Instructions

Troubleshooting and support

Useful resources