What Is SAST Scanning? Static Analysis Explained

SAST scanning analyzes your source code for security vulnerabilities without ever running it. Unlike runtime tools that wait for something to break in production, static analysis catches flaws — injection paths, hardcoded secrets, broken access checks — while the code is still on your machine. Every vulnerability found before deployment is one that never reaches your users.

SAST catches what code review misses. A 2025 study found that manual review alone fails to detect over 60% of common vulnerability patterns in codebases larger than 50,000 lines.

Try Rafter's SAST scanning free — get results on your first commit.

How Does SAST Scanning Work?

A SAST scanner parses your source code into an abstract syntax tree, then traces data flows and control paths looking for patterns that match known vulnerability signatures. It checks whether user input reaches a database query unsanitized, whether cryptographic functions use weak algorithms, whether authentication logic has bypass conditions. All of this happens at build time, before a single request hits your server.

Modern SAST tools go beyond simple pattern matching. They perform taint analysis — tracking untrusted data from entry points (HTTP parameters, file reads, environment variables) through every function call until it reaches a sensitive sink (SQL execution, file write, command shell). If the data arrives at the sink without proper validation or encoding, the scanner flags it.

What Does SAST Catch?

Static analysis is strongest at detecting structural flaws that follow predictable code patterns:

SQL injection and command injection — unsanitized input flowing into queries or shell commands
Cross-site scripting (XSS) — user data rendered in HTML without encoding
Hardcoded secrets — API keys, passwords, and tokens embedded in source files
Insecure cryptography — weak algorithms, static IVs, predictable random number generation
Path traversal — file operations using unvalidated user-supplied paths
Broken authentication — missing session checks, weak password hashing, improper token validation

SAST won't catch everything. Business logic flaws, race conditions, and environment-specific misconfigurations typically require dynamic testing or manual review. The strongest security posture combines both approaches.

How to Add SAST to Your Workflow

The highest-leverage placement for SAST is in your CI/CD pipeline, running on every pull request. Developers get immediate feedback while the code is fresh in their minds, and vulnerable changes never merge into the main branch.


# GitHub Actions example
- name: Run SAST scan
  uses: rafter/scan-action@v1
  with:
    scan-type: sast
    fail-on: critical,high

Blocking merges on critical findings enforces a security baseline without slowing teams down on low-risk issues. Teams that integrate SAST into their CI/CD security pipeline fix vulnerabilities 10x faster than those relying on periodic manual audits.

Rafter plugs into your repo and runs automated security scans on every commit — SAST, secrets detection, and dependency checks in a single pass. No configuration files to maintain, no false-positive triage backlogs. Results feed directly into your pull request with contextual fix suggestions your team (or your AI coding assistant) can act on immediately.

Start scanning your code with Rafter — setup takes less than two minutes.

How Does SAST Scanning Work?

What Does SAST Catch?

Static analysis is strongest at detecting structural flaws that follow predictable code patterns:

SQL injection and command injection — unsanitized input flowing into queries or shell commands

Cross-site scripting (XSS) — user data rendered in HTML without encoding

Hardcoded secrets — API keys, passwords, and tokens embedded in source files

Insecure cryptography — weak algorithms, static IVs, predictable random number generation

Path traversal — file operations using unvalidated user-supplied paths

Broken authentication — missing session checks, weak password hashing, improper token validation

How to Add SAST to Your Workflow

# GitHub Actions example - name: Run SAST scan uses: rafter/scan-action@v1 with: scan-type: sast fail-on: critical,high