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File Formats

CycloneDX

Dependency-Track's primary file format is CycloneDX, a lightweight, security-focused Bill of Materials specification. CycloneDX is the only format supported for uploading SBOMs to Dependency-Track.

Supported CycloneDX serialisations:

Format Content-Type
JSON application/vnd.cyclonedx+json
XML application/vnd.cyclonedx+xml

All versions of the CycloneDX BOM specification are supported for upload.

Dependency-Track also generates CycloneDX documents in several forms:

Document type Description
BOM A full software bill of materials reflecting the current component inventory of a project.
VEX A Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange document containing analysis decisions (states, justifications) for a project's findings.
VDR A Vulnerability Disclosure Report containing full vulnerability data for a project's components.

Finding Packaging Format (FPF)

The Finding Packaging Format (FPF) is a Dependency-Track-native JSON format for exporting findings. It is used primarily to integrate with platforms that cannot consume the REST API directly.

Structure

An FPF document contains four top-level fields:

Field Description
version The FPF format version.
meta Information about the Dependency-Track instance that generated the file.
project Project metadata (name, version, UUID).
findings Array of finding records, each linking a component to a vulnerability and including the current analysis state.

Each finding record includes the affected component's coordinates, the vulnerability details (ID, source, severity, CVSS vectors, CWEs), the current analysis state and justification, and a matrix identifier that uniquely identifies the (project, component, vulnerability) triple.

API Endpoint

GET /api/v1/finding/project/{uuid}/export

Requires the VIEW_VULNERABILITY permission.

Version History

FPF Version Dependency-Track Version Changes
v1.0 Initial Baseline format.
v1.1 v4.5 Added cwes array to support multiple CWEs per vulnerability.
v1.2 v4.8.0 Removed allBySource and internal id fields from aliases.
v1.3 v4.14.0 Added optional CVSS vectors (cvssV2Vector, cvssV3Vector, cvssV4Vector) and OWASP Risk Rating vector fields.