CodeQL 2.20.1 (2025-01-09)¶

This is an overview of changes in the CodeQL CLI and relevant CodeQL query and library packs. For additional updates on changes to the CodeQL code scanning experience, check out the code scanning section on the GitHub blog, relevant GitHub Changelog updates, changes in the CodeQL extension for Visual Studio Code, and the CodeQL Action changelog.

Security Coverage¶

CodeQL 2.20.1 runs a total of 454 security queries when configured with the Default suite (covering 168 CWE). The Extended suite enables an additional 128 queries (covering 34 more CWE). 22 security queries have been added with this release.

CodeQL CLI¶

Improvements¶

Automatic installation of dependencies for C++ autobuild is now supported on Ubuntu 24.04.
The CLI will now warn if it detects that it is installed in a location where it is likely to cause performance issues. This includes: user home, desktop, downloads, or the file system root.

You can avoid this warning by setting the CODEQL_ALLOW_INSTALLATION_ANYWHERE environment variable to true.

Query Packs¶

Minor Analysis Improvements¶

C/C++¶

The “Returning stack-allocated memory” query (cpp/return-stack-allocated-memory) no longer produces results if there is an extraction error in the returned expression.
The “Badly bounded write” query (cpp/badly-bounded-write) no longer produces results if there is an extraction error in the type of the output buffer.
The “Too few arguments to formatting function” query (cpp/wrong-number-format-arguments) no longer produces results if an argument has an extraction error.
The “Wrong type of arguments to formatting function” query (cpp/wrong-type-format-argument) no longer produces results when an argument type has an extraction error.
Added dataflow models and flow sources for Microsoft’s Active Template Library (ATL).

C#¶

The ExternalApi and TestLibrary modules have been moved to the library pack.

New Queries¶

Python¶

The Server Side Template Injection query (py/template-injection), originally contributed to the experimental query pack by @porcupineyhairs, has been promoted to the main query suite. This query finds instances of templates for a template engine such as Jinja being constructed with user input.

Actions¶

Initial public preview release

Language Libraries¶

Breaking Changes¶

Java/Kotlin¶

The class ControlFlowNode (and by extension BasicBlock) is no longer directly equatable to Expr and Stmt. Any queries that have been exploiting these equalities, for example by using casts, will need minor updates in order to fix any compilation errors. Conversions can be inserted in either direction depending on what is most convenient. Available conversions include Expr.getControlFlowNode(), Stmt.getControlFlowNode(), ControlFlowNode.asExpr(), ControlFlowNode.asStmt(), and ControlFlowNode.asCall(). Exit nodes were until now modelled as a ControlFlowNode equal to its enclosing Callable; these are now instead modelled by the class ControlFlow::ExitNode.

Major Analysis Improvements¶

Swift¶

Upgraded to allow analysis of Swift 6.0.2.

Minor Analysis Improvements¶

C/C++¶

The Guards library (semmle.code.cpp.controlflow.Guards) has been improved to recognize more guard conditions.

C#¶

C# 13: Added QL library support for collection like type params parameters.
Added remote flow source models for properties of Blazor components annotated with any of the following attributes from Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components:
- [SupplyParameterFromForm]
- [SupplyParameterFromQuery]
Added the constructor and explicit cast operator of Microsoft.AspNetCore.Components.MarkupString as an html-injection sink. This will help catch cross-site scripting resulting from using MarkupString.
Added flow summaries for the Microsoft.AspNetCore.Mvc.Controller::View method.
The data flow library has been updated to track types in a slightly different way: The type of the tainted data (which may be stored into fields, etc.) is tracked more precisely, while the types of intermediate containers for nested contents is tracked less precisely. This may have a slight effect on false positives for complex flow paths.
The C# extractor now supports basic extraction of .NET 9 projects. There might be limited support for extraction of code using the new C# 13 language features.

Golang¶

Added a commandargs local source model for the os.Args variable.

Java/Kotlin¶

Added java.io.File.getName() as a path injection sanitizer.
The data flow library has been updated to track types in a slightly different way: The type of the tainted data (which may be stored into fields, etc.) is tracked more precisely, while the types of intermediate containers for nested contents is tracked less precisely. This may have a slight effect on false positives for complex flow paths.
Added a sink for “Server-side request forgery” (java/ssrf) for the third parameter to org.springframework.web.client.RestTemplate.getForObject, when we cannot statically determine that it does not affect the host in the URL.

Python¶

Added modeling of fastapi.Request and starlette.requests.Request as sources of untrusted input, and modeling of tainted data flow out of these request objects.

Deprecated APIs¶

C/C++¶

The TemplateParameter class, representing C++ type template parameters has been deprecated. Use TypeTemplateParameter instead.

New Features¶

C/C++¶

New classes SizeofPackExprOperator and SizeofPackTypeOperator were introduced, which represent the C++ sizeof... operator taking expressions and type arguments, respectively.
A new class TemplateTemplateParameterInstantiation was introduced, which represents instantiations of template template parameters.
A new predicate getAnInstantiation was added to the TemplateTemplateParameter class, which yields instantiations of template template parameters.
The getTemplateArgumentType and getTemplateArgumentValue predicates of the Declaration class now also yield template arguments of template template parameters.
A new class NonTypeTemplateParameter was introduced, which represents C++ non-type template parameters.
A new class TemplateParameterBase was introduced, which represents C++ non-type template parameters, type template parameters, and template template parameters.

Python¶

Added support for parameter annotations in API graphs. This means that in a function definition such as def foo(x: Bar): ..., you can now use the getInstanceFromAnnotation() method to step from Bar to x. In addition to this, the getAnInstance method now also includes instances arising from parameter annotations.

Actions¶

Initial public preview release

Shared Libraries¶

Minor Analysis Improvements¶

Dataflow Analysis¶

Added a module DataFlow::DeduplicatePathGraph that can be used to avoid generating duplicate path explanations in queries that use flow state.