Mend (formerly Whitesource) scanner reference
You can scan container images and repositories using Mend.
Before you begin
To scan a container image, you must have Docker-in-Docker running as a background service in the stage where you're running the scan.
Set up a Docker-in-Docker background step
In the Execution tab, do the following:
- Click Add Step and then choose Background.
- Configure the Background step as follows:
- Dependency Name =
dind
- Container Registry = The Docker connector to download the DinD image. If you don't have one defined, go to Docker connector settings reference.
- Image =
docker:dind
- Under Optional Configuration, select the Privileged checkbox.

Mend step configuration
The recommended workflow is add a Mend step to a Security Tests or CI Build stage and then configure it as described below.
- UI configuration support is currently limited to the following scanners: Aqua Trivy, Bandit, Black Duck, Checkmarx, Grype, Mend, Prisma Cloud, Snyk, SonarQube, and ZAP.
- Each step palette shows only the options that apply to a specific scan. If you're setting up a repository scan, for example, the UI won't show Container Image settings.
- Docker-in-Docker is not required for these steps unless you're scanning a container image. If you're scanning a repository using Bandit, for example, you don't need to set up a Background step running DinD.
- Support is currently limited to Kubernetes and Harness Cloud AMD64 build infrastructures only.
Step Palette
Scan
Scan Mode
The orchestration mode to use for the scan. The following list includes the UI and YAML values for the supported options.
- Orchestrated A fully-orchestrated scan. A Security step in the Harness pipeline orchestrates a scan and then normalizes and compresses the results.
- Extraction A partially-orchestrated scan. The Security step pulls scan results from an external SaaS service and then normalizes and compresses the data.
- Ingestion Ingestion scans are not orchestrated. The Security step ingest results from a previous scan (for a scan run in an previous step) and then normallizes and compresses the results.
Scan Configuration
The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.
Target
Type
The target type to scan for vulnerabilities.
- Repository Scan a codebase repo.
- Container Image Scan the layers, libraries, and packages in a container image.
Name
The Identifier that you want to assign to the target you’re scanning in the pipeline. Use a unique, descriptive name such as codebaseAlpha
or jsmith/myalphaservice
.
Variant
An identifier for a specific target to scan, such as the branch name or image tag. This identifier is used to differentiate or group results for a target. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.
Workspace (repository)
The workspace path on the pod running the Security step. The workspace path is /harness
by default.
You can override this if you want to scan only a subset of the workspace. For example, suppose the pipeline publishes artifacts to a subfolder /tmp/artifacts
and you want to scan these artifacts only. In this case, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/artifacts
.
Ingestion File
The results data file to use when running an Ingestion scan. Generally an Ingestion scan consists of a scan step (to generate the data file) and an ingestion step (to ingest the data file).
Authentication
Domain
The fully-qualified URL to the scanner.
Enforce SSL
The step and the scanner communicate over SSL by default. Set this to false to disable SSL (not safe).
API Version
The scanner API version. Some scanners require this.
Type
The scanner API version. Specify one of the following:
- Username & Password
- API Key
Access ID
Username to log in to the scanner.
Access Token
The access token to log in to the scanner. In most cases this is a password or an API key.
You should create a Harness text secret with your encrypted token and reference the secret using the format <+secrets.getValue(project.container-access-id>
. For more information, go to Add and Reference Text Secrets.
Scan Tool
Lookup Type
The type of key used to look up the object to scan: password or API key.
Project Name
The name of the scan project as defined in the scanner. This is the also the target name in the Harness UI (Security Tests > Test Targets).
Include
The initial scope for the scan. This should match the format required by the scanner.
Exclude
Exclusions to the initial scope for the scan. This should match the format required by the scanner.
Project Version
The version of the scan project, as defined in the scanner.
Log Level, CLI flags, and Fail on Severity
Log Level
The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:
- DEBUG
- INFO
- WARNING
- ERROR
Fail on Severity
Every Security step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:
CRITICAL
HIGH
MEDIUM
LOW
INFO
NONE
— Do not fail on severity
The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none
Settings
You can add a tool_args
setting to run the Unified Agent binary with specific command-line arguments. For example, you can exclude certain files from the scan like this: tool_args
= -excludes **/*javadoc.jar
.
Additional Configuration
In the Additional Configuration settings, you can use the following options:
Advanced settings
In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:
Security step configuration (deprecated)
Set up a Mend scan in a Security step
You can set up Mend scans using a Security step: create a CI Build or Security Tests stage, add a Security step, and then add the setting:value
pairs as specified below.
Security step dialog box
Here's an example of how to set up a scan in a Security step. scan_type
and policy_type
are scanner-specific; the other settings are common to scans of container images.

product_name
=whitesource
policy_type
=ingestionOnly
,dataLoad
, ororchestratedScan
scan_type
=container
product_domain
(optional) — The default ishttps://saas.whitesourcesoftware.com/api
product_access_id
product_access_token
product_include
product_config_name
=default
product_lookup_type
(optional)
- Accepted value(s) when
policy_type
is set todataLoad
:byName
byTokens
- Accepted value(s) when
policy_type
is set toorchestratedScan
:appendToProductByToken
appendToProductByName
fail_on_severity
- See Fail on Severity.
You must configure the following settings depending on the product lookup type — i.e., whether you are using the names or tokens to reference the Mend product:
product_product_name
product_project_name
product_project_token
product_project_token
Container image scan settings
The following settings apply to all scanners where the scan_type
is containerImage
.
container_project
(required)container_tag
(required)container_type
- accepted value(s):
local_image
,docker_v2
,jfrog_artifactory
,aws_ecr
- for
container_type
set tolocal
None
- for
container_type
set todocker_v2
container_access_id
: Usernamecontainer_access_token
: Password/Token
- for
container_type
set tojfrog_artifactory
container_access_id
: Usernamecontainer_access_token
: Password/Token
- for
container_type
set toaws_ecr
container_access_id
: Usernamecontainer_access_token
: Password/Tokencontainer_region
: AWS default region
- for
- accepted value(s):
container_domain
Target Name | Target Type |
local_image | container |
docker_v2 | container |
jfrog_artifactory | container |
aws_ecr | container |
website | instance |
Ingestion scan settings
The following settings are required for Security steps where the policy_type
is ingestionOnly
.
target name
The Identifier that you want to assign to the target you’re scanning in the pipeline. Use a unique, descriptive name such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice.variant
An identifier for a specific target to scan, such as the branch name or image tag. This identifier is used to differentiate or group results for a target. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.ingestion_file
The results data file to use when running an Ingestion scan. You should specify the full path to the data file in your workspace, such as/shared/customer_artifacts/my_scan_results.json
.
The following steps outline the general workflow for ingesting scan data into your pipeline:
Specify a shared folder for your scan results, such as
/shared/customer_artifacts
. You can do this in the Overview tab of the Security stage where you're ingesting your data.Create a Run step that copies your scan results to the shared folder. You can run your scan externally, before you run the build, or set up the Run step to run the scan and then copy the results.
Add a Security step after the Run step and add the
target name
,variant
, andingestion_file
settings as described above.
For a complete workflow description and example, go to Ingest Scan Results into an STO Pipeline.