Quickstart guide

Get up and running quickly with SonarQube CLI (secrets detection example).

This feature is in Beta stage. See the SonarQube Server Product release lifecycle or the SonarQube Cloud Product release lifecycle pages for more information on release stages.

Step 1: Install the SonarQube CLI

Depending on your operating system, run these commands in your terminal:

MacOS and Linux:

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SonarSource/sonarqube-cli/refs/heads/master/user-scripts/install.sh | bash

Windows:

irm https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonarqube-cli/install.ps1 | iex

Step 2: Authenticate with the server

Create a user token in SonarQube Server or SonarQube Cloud.

Then authenticate and store it locally:

sonar auth login -s <YourSonarQubeURL> --with-token <YourSonarQubeUserToken>

User tokens are required when authenticating your SonarQube CLI with SonarQube Cloud or SonarQube Server. Note that the CLI will not function properly if project tokens, global tokens, or scoped organization tokens are used during the setup process.

Verify the connection:

sonar auth status

If you’re using SonarQube Cloud, pass your organization with -o <YourSonarQubeCloudOrganization> instead of -s <YourSonarQubeServerURL>.

Step 3: Review the SonarQube CLI commands

For a full list of available commands, see the sonarqube-cli repository.

Step 4: Choose a guide to run next

Next, check out our detailed quickstart guides to use with your AI agent.

Quickstart secrets detection