SBOM Generation and License Resolution

Generate CycloneDX SBOMs, resolve missing licenses, and export to CSV for compliance review.

Overview

The OpenShell SBOM tooling produces source-tree CycloneDX JSON SBOMs using Syft, resolves missing or hash-based licenses by querying public registries (crates.io, npm, PyPI), and exports the results to CSV for stakeholder review.

SBOMs are release artifacts only -- they are generated on demand and not committed to the repository. Output lands in deploy/sbom/output/ (gitignored).

Pushed gateway, sandbox, and supervisor images carry an SPDX SBOM and minimal SLSA provenance as OCI attestations. Branch E2E, Release Dev, Release, and Pre-release image binaries embed cargo-auditable metadata, so their image SBOMs include linked Rust crates.

Prerequisites

• mise install has been run (installs Syft and other tools)
• The repository is checked out at the root

Inspecting an Image SBOM

BuildKit uses its default Syft scanner and attaches one SPDX document per platform. Read one without pulling the image:

docker buildx imagetools inspect ghcr.io/nvidia/openshell/gateway:latest \
  --format '{{ json (index .SBOM "linux/amd64").SPDX }}'

Validate the final attestation, requiring a Cargo package for an auditable image:

tasks/scripts/verify-image-sbom.sh ghcr.io/nvidia/openshell/gateway:latest --require-cargo

Inspecting an Auditable Image Binary

Opt into auditable metadata when staging a local image binary:

OPENSHELL_AUDITABLE=1 PREBUILT_ARCH=amd64 \
  tasks/scripts/stage-prebuilt-binaries.sh gateway

Scan the staged binary rather than the source tree:

mise x -- syft \
  "file:deploy/docker/.build/prebuilt-binaries/amd64/openshell-gateway" \
  -o cyclonedx-json

This output is limited to packages Syft discovers from that binary. Use mise run sbom for the broader source-tree license-compliance inventory.

Workflow 1: Full SBOM Generation (One Command)

mise run sbom

This single command chains three stages:

1. Generate (sbom:generate): Syft scans the workspace source tree and produces a CycloneDX JSON SBOM
2. Resolve (sbom:resolve): Public registry APIs fill in missing or hash-based licenses in the JSON
3. CSV (sbom:csv): JSON SBOMs are converted to CSV for review

Output directory: deploy/sbom/output/

After running, the user can find:

• deploy/sbom/output/*.cdx.json -- full CycloneDX SBOMs
• deploy/sbom/output/*.csv -- CSV exports ready for spreadsheet review

Workflow 2: Individual Stages

Run stages independently when debugging or iterating:

mise run sbom:generate   # Generate JSON SBOMs only (requires Syft)
mise run sbom:resolve    # Resolve licenses in existing JSONs (queries APIs)
mise run sbom:csv        # Convert existing JSONs to CSV

Workflow 3: License Check (CI Advisory)

mise run sbom:check

Reports unresolved licenses without failing. Intended for PR CI as a non-blocking advisory check. Requires that SBOMs have already been generated (mise run sbom:generate).

Workflow 4: Processing External SBOMs

The Python scripts accept explicit file paths, so they can process SBOMs from any source (e.g., NVIDIA nSpect pipeline output):

uv run python deploy/sbom/resolve_licenses.py /path/to/external-sbom.json
uv run python deploy/sbom/sbom_to_csv.py /path/to/external-sbom.json

License Resolution Details

The resolver queries these public registries:

Registry	Package URL prefix	Method
crates.io	pkg:cargo/*	REST API
npm	pkg:npm/*	Registry API
PyPI	pkg:pypi/*	JSON API
Go modules	pkg:golang/*	Known license map (no API)
Debian/Ubuntu	pkg:deb/*	Known license map

Components from private registries (e.g., @openclaw/* npm packages) are not resolved and will appear in the "unresolved" report.

Output Files

Pattern	Description
deploy/sbom/output/openshell-source-{version}.cdx.json	CycloneDX JSON SBOM
deploy/sbom/output/openshell-source-{version}.csv	CSV export (name, version, type, purl, licenses, bom-ref)

Key Files

File	Purpose
deploy/sbom/resolve_licenses.py	License resolution script
deploy/sbom/sbom_to_csv.py	JSON-to-CSV converter
tasks/sbom.toml	Mise task definitions
mise.toml	Syft tool definition (under [tools])

Quick Reference

Task	Command
Full pipeline	mise run sbom
Generate only	mise run sbom:generate
Resolve licenses	mise run sbom:resolve
Export CSV	mise run sbom:csv
CI license check	mise run sbom:check
Process external SBOM	uv run python deploy/sbom/resolve_licenses.py <file>