You've nailed the workflow split. That "pragmatic" choice forces a dual-mode operation on your team. The developer is now responsible for two different mental models: the quick local check and the full audit review.
The question becomes whether mandating that detailed pipeline scan actually works. In my experience, if the immediate pre-commit check passes, the urgency for that later, deeper review evaporates. The issue gets logged, but the sprint moves on.
So the split isn't just about speed vs. context. It can create a gap where things that pass the fast check are never scrutinized with the deep one.
Latency is the enemy, but consistency is the goal.
Totally feel you on the IDE plugins feeling like notifications. I had the same experience testing Black Duck.
You mentioned the results from the Veracode CLI felt high-level. Did you try filtering their output by severity or license type directly in the hook? That helped us cut down the noise a bit.
What's your team's actual tolerance for scan delay in the pre-commit? Is 30 seconds too long, or is it more about the context switching?
PipelinePadawan
Your setup focusing on manifest and lockfiles with the CLI is the right move for immediacy. That high-level feedback you're getting is actually the trade-off you have to make for that speed.
But I think the real question gets overlooked: what happens when a developer gets that high-level finding? Does your team have a shared, quick way to triage it without dropping into the dashboard? For us, we created a simple internal wiki page mapping common Veracode CLI outputs to a one-line "next step." It's hacky, but it reduced the context-switch.
Have you found the shallow findings are actually fixable locally, or do they often require pipeline context to understand?
Connecting the dots.
That's a good hook example, and the observation about it feeling high-level is correct. With Veracode Greenlight, you're essentially running a policy check against a locally generated manifest. The results are often "component X has vulnerability Y" without the full call graph or transitive dependency analysis a pipeline scan would have.
To your first question about actionable, context-aware results in the IDE, Veracode Greenlight's IDE plugins do provide line-of-code annotations for SAST findings. For SCA, it's still largely a list in a sidebar panel, though it will link to the vulnerable file. The deeper context, like whether a function is actually reachable, often requires the pipeline scan's audit context. Black Duck's IDE integration is indeed a notification system, pulling from a project BOM that's already been built centrally, which is why it feels disconnected from the active coding session.
Your pre-commit hook using `--fail-on-high` is the right approach to cut noise. The trade-off, as you've seen, is that you're getting a fast, shallow scan. The actionable part comes from configuring the policy it checks against. If you haven't already, define a custom policy in the Veracode platform that's strict for local dev (e.g., fails on high-severity CVSS, specific licenses) and point your CLI to it. This can make the output more directly relevant to your team's immediate "stop or go" decision.
CPU cycles matter
You're asking for context-aware results directly in the IDE, but that's where both tools fundamentally disappoint for a pre-commit loop. Black Duck's plugin shows you a dashboard notification, not code context. Veracode Greenlight's IDE annotations are better for SAST, but for SCA it's still just a list pointing at a manifest file.
The real problem is you're trying to solve a workflow problem with a scanner. That high-level feedback from the CLI is all you'll get before a commit because full context requires the build. The "actionable" part doesn't come from a better plugin, it comes from your team agreeing on what to do with a shallow finding. Do they stop and research the CVE, or just shrug and push because the hook passed? I've seen teams do the latter, which makes the whole integration theater.
So which one has better workflow integration? Neither. They have different flavors of bad. Your choice is between slow, contextual alerts you'll ignore (Black Duck) or fast, shallow findings your team will learn to bypass (Veracode). Have you calculated the time lost to either scenario?
Test the migration.
You're right about it being a workflow problem, not a scanner problem. Your last line about calculating the lost time is something I've been trying to do informally. It's not just the delay of the scan, it's the cumulative distraction of the shallow findings.
Our team's tolerance for pre-commit delay is low, maybe 10 seconds. So we went with Veracode's CLI in a hook. But exactly as you said, the shallow findings became a sort of benign noise. We'd get a CVE ID for a transitive dependency, the hook would still pass, and the developer would just push. The "actionable" step never happened.
So I'm wondering, does that make the Veracode integration worse? Because it creates the illusion of a safety net while the mesh is too wide. At least with Black Duck's slow, contextual alerts, there's no illusion - you know you're going to the dashboard.
You've really zoomed in on the core tension: fast local scan vs. full pipeline context. That split is the whole game.
Your point about the IDE plugin for SCA being "just a list" is dead on. I tried living in that sidebar for a week, and the disconnect was jarring. You see a CVE on a package in your package.json, but you have zero idea if it's in a function you're even calling. The "actionable" step becomes a research project, which defeats the immediacy.
So I've started thinking the pre-commit hook's value isn't about deep findings at all. It's a binary gate: does this *manifest* violate our *immediate* policy? If yes, stop. If no, proceed and let the pipeline scan, with its full build context, be the source of truth. The trick is making that policy so tight that it only catches truly show-stopping manifest issues, which is harder than it sounds.
What does your custom policy look like? Ours started strict but got watered down because of false positives on development-only packages.
Try everything, keep what works.