Trail of Bits public CodeQL queries

April 17, 2026 · View on GitHub

This repository contains CodeQL queries developed by Trail of Bits and made available to the public. They are part of our ongoing development efforts and are used in our security audits, vulnerability research, and internal projects. They will evolve over time as we identify new techniques.

Setup

make download
codeql resolve packs | grep trailofbits

See QUERIES.md for the full list of queries.

Usage

codeql database analyze database.db --format=sarif-latest --output=./tob.sarif -- trailofbits/cpp-queries
codeql database analyze database.db --format=sarif-latest --output=./tob.sarif -- trailofbits/go-queries
codeql database analyze database.db --format=sarif-latest --output=./tob.sarif -- trailofbits/java-queries

Query suites

CodeQL queries are grouped into suites. To execute queries from a specific suite add its name after a colon: trailofbits/cpp-queries:codeql-suites/tob-cpp-full.qls.

The recommended suite - tob-cpp-code-scanning.qls - is chosen and executed when you do not explicitly specify any suite. Other suites in this repository are:

tob-<lang>-crypto.qls - queries targeting cryptographic vulnerabilities
tob-<lang>-security.qls - queries targeting standard security issues
tob-<lang>-full.qls - all queries, including experimental ones

Development

Prepare environment

Configure global CodeQL's search path:

git clone https://github.com/trailofbits/codeql-queries
mkdir -p "${HOME}/.config/codeql/"
echo "--search-path '$PWD/codeql-queries'" > "${HOME}/.config/codeql/config"

cd codeql-queries/
make pack-install

codeql resolve packs | grep trailofbits

Before committing

make pack-upgrade
make test format
make generate-table generate-help

Release

Ensure all qlpack.yml files have the correct version.
```
./scripts/update-version.sh <version>
```
Create a release on GitHub, create a new tag, and autogenerate release notes.