User Manual

September 9, 2026 · View on GitHub

Broker is the bridge between FOSSA and internal projects.

FOSSA users use Broker to scan local projects, importing them into the FOSSA service (including FOSSA in the cloud) without sharing access to the source code of the project.

Have a question not answered in the docs? Check the FAQ or send us a support request via support.fossa.com!

System requirements

Most modern systems can run Broker with no issues. For a more detailed look at system requirements, see the system requirements reference.

Installing Broker

To install Broker on your local system, see install Broker locally
To run Broker in Kubernetes, see install Broker in Kubernetes

Config

The Broker config file tells Broker about the repositories it should scan, how it can access them, and at what cadence. See the config reference for more details.

Repositories are configured with one of two integration types:

git scans a single repository, specified by its remote URL.
gitlab_group scans every repository in a GitLab group. Broker asks GitLab which repositories the group contains, so they do not have to be listed individually, and a single GitLab group access token covers all of them. Note that discovery runs when Broker starts; see discovery runs at startup.

Subcommands

`init`

Initialize an empty configuration file and database.

For more information, see the init subcommand documentation.

`fix`

Diagnose possible issues in the local runtime environment that may be preventing Broker from scanning projects and sending their metadata to FOSSA.

For more information, see the fix subcommand documentation.

`run`

Boots Broker using the local config file, scanning the projects on configured DevOps hosts and importing their metadata into FOSSA.

For more information, see the run subcommand documentation.