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Syft

CLI tool and library for generating a Software Bill of Materials from container images and filesystems

From anchore·Updated June 25, 2026·View on GitHub·

**A CLI tool and Go library for generating a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) from container images and filesystems. Exceptional for vulnerability detection when used with a scanner like [Grype](https://github.com/anchore/grype).** The project is written primarily in Go, distributed under the Apache License 2.0 license, first published in 2020. It has gained significant community traction with 9,159 stars and 881 forks on GitHub. Key topics include: containers, cyclonedx, docker, go, golang.

Latest release: v1.45.1
June 5, 2026View Changelog →
<p align="center"> <img src="https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/5199289/136844524-1527b09f-c5cb-4aa9-be54-5aa92a6086c1.png" width="271" alt="Cute pink owl syft logo"> </p>

Syft

A CLI tool and Go library for generating a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) from container images and filesystems. Exceptional for vulnerability detection when used with a scanner like Grype.

<p align="center"> &nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/anchore/syft/actions/workflows/validations.yaml" target="_blank"><img alt="Validations" src="https://github.com/anchore/syft/actions/workflows/validations.yaml/badge.svg"></a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/anchore/syft" target="_blank"><img alt="Go Report Card" src="https://goreportcard.com/badge/github.com/anchore/syft"></a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/anchore/syft/releases/latest" target="_blank"><img alt="GitHub release" src="https://img.shields.io/github/release/anchore/syft.svg"></a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://github.com/anchore/syft" target="_blank"><img alt="GitHub go.mod Go version" src="https://img.shields.io/github/go-mod/go-version/anchore/syft.svg"></a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="" target="_blank"><img alt="License: Apache-2.0" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/License-Apache%202.0-blue.svg"></a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://anchore.com/discourse" target="_blank"><img alt="Join our Discourse" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Discourse-Join-blue?logo=discourse"/></a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a rel="me" href="https://fosstodon.org/@syft"><img alt="Follow on Mastodon" src="https://img.shields.io/badge/Mastodon-Follow-blue?logoColor=white&logo=mastodon"/></a>&nbsp; </p>

syft-demo

Features

[!TIP]
New to Syft? Check out the Getting Started guide for a walkthrough!

Installation

The quickest way to get up and going:

bash
curl -sSfL https://get.anchore.io/syft | sudo sh -s -- -b /usr/local/bin

[!TIP]
See Installation docs for more ways to get Syft, including Homebrew, Docker, Scoop, Chocolatey, Nix, and more!

The basics

See the packages within a container image or directory:

bash
# container image syft alpine:latest # directory syft ./my-project

To get an SBOM, specify one or more output formats:

bash
# SBOM to stdout syft <image> -o cyclonedx-json # Multiple SBOMs to files syft <image> -o spdx-json=./spdx.json -o cyclonedx-json=./cdx.json

[!TIP]
Check out the Getting Started guide to explore all of the capabilities and features.

Want to know all of the ins-and-outs of Syft? Check out the CLI docs, configuration docs, and JSON schema.

Contributing

We encourage users to help make these tools better by submitting issues when you find a bug or want a new feature.
Check out our contributing overview and developer-specific documentation if you are interested in providing code contributions.

<p xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/"> Syft development is sponsored by <a href="https://anchore.com/">Anchore</a>, and is released under the <a href="https://github.com/anchore/syft?tab=Apache-2.0-1-ov-file">Apache-2.0 License</a>. The <a property="dct:title" rel="cc:attributionURL" href="https://anchore.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/syft-logo.svg">Syft logo</a> by <a rel="cc:attributionURL dct:creator" property="cc:attributionName" href="https://anchore.com/">Anchore</a> is licensed under <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" target="_blank" rel="license noopener noreferrer" style="display:inline-block;">CC BY 4.0<img style="height:22px!important;margin-left:3px;vertical-align:text-bottom;" src="https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/icons/cc.svg" alt=""><img style="height:22px!important;margin-left:3px;vertical-align:text-bottom;" src="https://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/icons/by.svg" alt=""></a> </p>

For commercial support options with Syft or Grype, please contact Anchore.

Come talk to us!

The Syft Team holds regular community meetings online. All are welcome to join to bring topics for discussion.

Contributors

Showing top 12 contributors by commit count.

View all contributors on GitHub →

This article is auto-generated from anchore/syft via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 6/25/2026