fossa list targets

fossa list targets

The list targets command lists all valid analysis targets in a directory. This output can be useful to understand what is going to be analyzed when fossa analyze is run. list-targets can be also be used with analysis target configuration to limit what is ultimately analyzed.

Command output

Example output

$ fossa list-targets[ INFO] Found target: cabal@./[ INFO] Found target: cocoapods@project/mobile/[ INFO] Found target: setuptools@scripts/python/[ INFO] Found target: yarn@./

This output tells us that when fossa analyze is run, we will be analyzing cabal, cocoapods, pipenv, and yarn projects. This can be useful to determine if there are targets you expect or don't expect to see.

Command output formats

The list-targets command supports the following formats (via fossa list-targets --format=<OPTION>):

• legacy (this is the default format, as shown above in the command output section)
• text (renders valid analysis targets per line, in the format of fossa analyze --only-target and fossa analyze --exclude-target)
• ndjson (renders valid analysis targets in JSON format separated by line breaks)

Utilizing analysis target configuration

Analysis target configuration through the fossa configuration file allows users to manually determine what they would like to analyze. Looking at the example above, if we know that the dependencies for the setuptools@scripts/python/ target are not part of the production release, we can exclude it from the analysis. Example exclusion format:

exclude:  - type: setuptools    path: scripts/python

Adding this section to your configuration file at the root of your project will ensure that when fossa analyze is run, the setuptools target is skipped.

F.A.Q.

How can I ensure that my project is discoverable before running fossa analyze or fossa test?

In some scenarios, you may want to set up automation for projects that have been discovered. For example, you might want the process to fail if the project of interest isn't discovered by fossa before running fossa analyze.

First, execute fossa list-targets --format=text to see what fossa currently discovers:

yarn@javascript/with-v2-yarn-workspaces/
yarn@javascript/with-v1-yarn/
npm@javascript/with-package-json/
npm@javascript/with-npm-package-lock/
npm@javascript/with-npm-lockfile-v3/
pnpm@javascript/pnpm/

From here, we assert that fossa finds the npm project at the directory javascript/with-npm-package-lock/ before running fossa analyze using the following in CI:

if fossa list-targets --format=text | grep -q 'npm@javascript/with-npm-package-lock/' ; then  fossa analyze && fossa testelse  exit 1fi