About default setup
Default setup for code scanning is the quickest, easiest, most low-maintenance way to enable code scanning for your repository. Based on the code in your repository, default setup will automatically create a custom code scanning configuration. After enabling default setup, the code in your repository will be scanned:
- on each push to the repository's default branch, or any protected branch. For more information on protected branches, see "About protected branches."
- when creating or committing to a pull request based against the repository's default branch, or any protected branch.
You can enable the automatically selected configuration of default setup to start scanning your code as soon as possible, or you can customize aspects of the configuration to better meet your code scanning needs. If you choose to customize the configuration yourself, you can select:
- the query suite default setup will run. For more information, see "Built-in CodeQL query suites."
You can also enable default setup for multiple or all repositories in an organization at the same time. For information on bulk enablement, see "Configuring default setup for code scanning at scale."
If you need more granular control over your code scanning configuration, you should instead configure advanced setup. For more information, see "Configuring advanced setup for code scanning."
Requirements for using default setup
Your repository is eligible for default setup for code scanning if:
- it includes only the following CodeQL-supported languages: JavaScript/TypeScript, Python, or Ruby.
- GitHub Actions are enabled.
- GitHub Advanced Security is enabled.
You can use default setup if your repository includes languages that aren't supported by CodeQL, such as R. For more information on CodeQL-supported languages, see "About code scanning with CodeQL."
Configuring default setup for a repository
Note: At least one CodeQL-supported language's analysis in a repository must succeed, or else default setup will not be successfully enabled in that repository.
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On your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, navigate to the main page of the repository.
Note: If you are configuring default setup on a fork, you must first enable GitHub Actions. To enable GitHub Actions, under your repository name, click Actions, then click I understand my workflows, go ahead and enable them. Be aware that this will enable all existing workflows on your fork.
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Under your repository name, click Settings. If you cannot see the "Settings" tab, select the dropdown menu, then click Settings.
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In the "Security" section of the sidebar, click Code security and analysis.
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In the "Code scanning" section, select Set up , then click Default.
You will then see a "CodeQL default configuration" dialog summarizing the code scanning configuration automatically created by default setup.
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Optionally, to customize your code scanning setup, click Edit.
- To add or remove a language from the analysis performed by default setup, select or deselect that language in the "Languages" section. If you would like to analyze a CodeQL-supported compiled language with default setup, select that language here.
- To specify the CodeQL query suite you would like to use, select your preferred query suite in the "Query suites" section.
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Review the settings for default setup on your repository, then click Enable CodeQL. This will trigger a workflow that tests the new, automatically generated configuration.
Note: If you are switching to default setup from advanced setup, you will see a warning informing you that default setup will override existing code scanning configurations. This warning means default setup will disable the existing workflow file and block any CodeQL analysis API uploads.
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Optionally, to view your default setup configuration after enablement, select , then click View CodeQL configuration.
Next steps
After you configure default setup for code scanning, and your configuration runs successfully at least once, you can start examining and resolving code scanning alerts. For more information on code scanning alerts, see "About code scanning alerts" and "Managing code scanning alerts for your repository."
You can find detailed information about your code scanning configuration, including timestamps for each scan and the percentage of files scanned, on the tool status page. For more information, see "About the tool status page for code scanning."
When you configure default setup, you may encounter an error. For information on troubleshooting specific errors, see "Troubleshooting code scanning."