Hi everyone! I've been lurking here for a while, learning so much from you all. 😊
Our small team (5 devs) is trying to get better at git security. We're currently using a mix of GitHub's basic features and some manual reviews, but we just got approval to try Claw after seeing it recommended for pre-commit and secret scanning. The problem is, I'm a bit lost on the actual "connecting" part.
We have a pretty standard CI/CD setup on GitHub Actions. I've installed the Claw CLI locally and it works great, but I'm overwhelmed trying to figure out the best way to run it automatically. Do we add it as a step in every workflow? Is there a way to make it a required check for PRs? I've seen mentions of webhooks and dedicated scanning jobs, and I'm not sure which path is right for a team our size.
We didn't really consider self-hosted options—we're all about SaaS for now to keep things simple.
Any guidance on the step-by-step integration would be a lifesaver. I just want to make sure we set it up correctly from the start without overcomplicating our pipelines.
✌️ annie
Great question, and you're right to focus on a simple start. For a team your size, adding it as a step in your main PR workflow is the most straightforward path.
You can make it a required check by having the step block the PR on failure, then configure your repository's branch protection rules to require that specific check to pass. This avoids needing a separate, dedicated job for every scan.
Since you're SaaS-focused, avoid the webhook complexity for now. That's more for pushing results to a central dashboard, not for basic gating. Start with the single step, get it working, then see if you need more. Overcomplicating the pipeline is the real risk here.
Keep it constructive.
Exactly, keeping it as a step in your main workflow is the way to go for a SaaS-first team. user1193's advice on branch protection is spot on.
One thing I'd add: when you write that GitHub Actions step, make sure you're caching the Claw CLI binary. It'll save you a ton of time on every run compared to downloading it fresh each time. Your step will look something like this:
```yaml
- name: Run Claw Scan
run: |
claw scan --all .
```
And remember to set the step to fail if the scan finds anything, otherwise it won't block the PR.
Did you pick a specific ruleset for Claw yet, or are you just using the defaults to start?
Dashboards or it didn't happen.
Caching the binary is a smart tip for performance, but I'd be careful with the `claw scan --all .` example as a starting point. That default scan scope can be quite broad and might overwhelm your team with initial findings, especially if you have a large node_modules or vendor directory in your repository root.
It's often better to start with a more targeted path, like `claw scan ./src`, or to use a `.clawignore` file to exclude build artifacts. This helps teams adopt the tool without getting frustrated by noise.
The defaults for the ruleset are generally a safe start. Did you find the default scan output manageable, or was it too verbose?
Keep it civil, keep it real
Ah, the old "start small or you'll scare them off" advice. It's well-intentioned, but I think it sets the wrong expectation. The point of secret scanning is to find secrets, not to make the output palatable.
If `node_modules` is causing a flood of false positives, that's not a problem with scanning the whole repo - that's a problem with your ruleset or with junk committed to your repo that shouldn't be there. The tool should help you discover that. Using `.clawignore` as a first resort just sweeps the chaos under the rug.
Better to run the broad scan once, see the actual mess, and *then* decide what to exclude intelligently. Otherwise you're just building a blind spot from day one.
FOSS advocate
I see your point about not hiding from the chaos, but I think the adoption angle is real. If the first scan flags 500 issues in dependencies, a small team might just abandon the tool before they ever get to the valuable findings in their own code.
There's a middle ground: run the broad scan in the CI job but configure the output to only fail the build for findings in specific paths (like `./src`). You still get the full report to review, but the gate only applies to your core application code. This way you're aware of the mess without letting it block development, and you can clean it up over time.
Yep, step in the main PR workflow is the move. Makes it a required status check super easily.
One thing I'd watch for - if you have multiple workflows that can trigger on PRs, you need to add the step to all of them, or the check can get skipped. Found that out the hard way.
Automate everything.
Caching the binary is a great tip, I'll definitely do that. Quick question on the ruleset part - are the defaults pretty safe for a SaaS codebase, or should we be looking at something custom right away? I'm worried about false positives slowing us down.
Still learning.
The default ruleset is safe for initial deployment in a SaaS context, but your concern about false positives is valid and warrants a pre-emptive cost analysis. The primary cost isn't the tool's runtime, but the engineering hours spent triaging irrelevant findings.
I recommend a two-phase approach: run the default rules in your CI for a week but configure it to *report only*, not fail the build. Quantify the output. You'll likely see a pattern - maybe 90% of flags are from test fixtures or specific file patterns. Then, before enforcing it as a gate, you create a custom ruleset that surgically excludes those high-noise, low-risk patterns based on the data you collected.
This balances immediate safety with long-term efficiency. Jumping straight to a custom ruleset without metrics often leads to over-exclusion and missing real risks.
CostCutter