How to Access the Software Bill of Materials

This documentation explains how to access the software bill of materials (SBOM) for an app image built using Paketo buildpacks. For more in-depth field definitions and details check out the software bill of materials concept page.

Access the Software Bill of Materials on a Sample Application

A buildpack can generate SBOMs in different formats. The primary supported SBOMs are in Syft, SPDX, and CycloneDX JSON formats. Paketo buildpacks also generate an SBOM in a Paketo-specific schema, but this SBOM is deprecated.

Access Syft, CycloneDX, and SPDX SBOMs

Follow the Node.js Getting Started tutorial to build the Node.js paketo-demo-app image.
Use the pack CLI to retrieve the software bill of materials files

pack sbom download paketo-demo-app --output-dir /tmp/demo-app-sbom

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The SBOM files will be in the specified output directory, /tmp/demo-app-sbom. Easily find all generated SBOM files with:

find /tmp/demo-app-sbom/layers/sbom -name "*.json"

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(Deprecated) Access Paketo-specific SBOM

Follow the Node.js Getting Started tutorial to build the Node.js paketo-demo-app image.

Use the pack CLI retrieve the software bill of materials metadata.

pack inspect-image paketo-demo-app --bom

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View Output

{
  "remote": null,
  "local": [
    {
      "name": "Node Engine",
      "metadata": {
        "checksum": {
          "algorithm": "SHA-256",
          "hash": "a50ee095f936b51fffe5c032a7377a156723145c1ab0291ccc882f04719f1b54"
        },
        "cpe": "cpe:2.3:a:nodejs:node.js:16.7.0:*:*:*:*:*:*:*",
        "deprecation-date": "2024-04-30T00:00:00Z",
        "licenses": [
          "0BSD",
          "Apache-2.0",
          "Artistic-2.0",
          "BSD-2-Clause",
          "BSD-3-Clause",
          "BSD-3-Clause-Clear",
          "CC0-1.0",
          "MIT",
          "MIT-0",
          "Unicode-TOU"
        ],
        "purl": "pkg:generic/node@v16.7.0?checksum=0c4a82acc5ae67744d56f2c97db54b859f2b3ef8e78deacfb8aed0ed4c7cb690&download_url=https://nodejs.org/dist/v16.7.0/node-v16.7.0.tar.gz",
        "source": {
          "checksum": {
            "algorithm": "SHA-256",
            "hash": "0c4a82acc5ae67744d56f2c97db54b859f2b3ef8e78deacfb8aed0ed4c7cb690"
          },
          "uri": "https://nodejs.org/dist/v16.7.0/node-v16.7.0.tar.gz"
        },
        "stacks": [
          "io.buildpacks.stacks.bionic"
        ],
        "uri": "https://deps.paketo.io/node/node_v16.7.0_linux_x64_bionic_a50ee095.tgz",
        "version": "16.7.0"
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/node-engine",
        "version": "1.2.3"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "node_modules",
      "metadata": {
        "build": true
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/npm-install",
        "version": "0.4.0"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "node_modules",
      "metadata": {
        "launch": true
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/npm-install",
        "version": "0.4.0"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "httpdispatcher",
      "metadata": {
        "licenses": [
          "MIT"
        ],
        "purl": "pkg:npm/httpdispatcher@2.1.2",
        "version": "2.1.2"
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/node-module-bom",
        "version": "1.2.3"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "mime-types",
      "metadata": {
        "licenses": [
          "MIT"
        ],
        "purl": "pkg:npm/mime-types@2.1.32",
        "version": "2.1.32"
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/node-module-bom",
        "version": "1.2.3"
      }
    },
     {
      "name": "mime-db",
      "metadata": {
        "licenses": [
          "MIT"
        ],
        "purl": "pkg:npm/mime-db@1.49.0",
        "version": "1.49.0"
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/node-module-bom",
        "version": "1.2.3"
      }
    },
    {
      "name": "leftpad",
      "metadata": {
        "licenses": [
          "BSD-3-Clause"
        ],
        "purl": "pkg:npm/leftpad@0.0.1",
        "version": "0.0.1"
      },
      "buildpacks": {
        "id": "paketo-buildpacks/node-module-bom",
        "version": "1.2.3"
      }
    }
  ]
}

See Build-time Dependencies in the SBOM

Syft, CycloneDX, and SPDX SBOMs

Syft, CycloneDX, and SPDX SBOMs that are retrieved using pack sbom download <image> only contain SBOM entries for launch-time app dependencies. To access SBOM entries for build-time app dependencies, SBOMs must be extracted at build time.

Run the build and extract the generated SBOMs to a local directory:

pack build myapp --sbom-output-dir /tmp/build-time-sbom

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When the build completes, inspect SBOMs in the output directory:

find /tmp/demo-app-sbom/layers/sbom -name "*.json"

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SBOMs that are inside the /tmp/demo-app-sbom/layers/sbom/build subdirectory contain entries for build-time dependencies.

List only the build-time SBOMs:

find /tmp/demo-app-sbom/layers/sbom/build -name "*.json"

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Paketo-specific SBOM

There is currently no way to collect SBOM entries for build-time dependencies in the Paketo-specific format. It is unlikely that support will be implemented, given that the Paketo-specific SBOM is deprecated.

Determine Which SBOM Formats a Buildpack Will Generate

The buildpack.toml in the source code for a component buildpack will indicate which SBOMs it supports.

Check the api field of the buildpack.toml. If the Buildpack API is less than 0.7, it only supports the Paketo-specific SBOM.
If the Buildpack API version is at least 0.7, check the buildpack.sbom-formats array in the buildpack.toml. This will enumerate the SBOM formats that the buildpack is capable of generating.

Use external tooling to merge and visualize the SBOMs

After you run

pack sbom download paketo-demo-app --output-dir /tmp/demo-app-sbom

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You will get similar results:

/tmp/demo-app-sbom
└── layers
    └── sbom
        └── launch
            ├── paketo-buildpacks_bellsoft-liberica
            │   ├── helper
            │   │   └── sbom.syft.json
            │   └── jre
            │       └── sbom.syft.json
            ├── paketo-buildpacks_ca-certificates
            │   └── helper
            │       └── sbom.syft.json
            ├── paketo-buildpacks_executable-jar
            │   ├── sbom.cdx.json
            │   └── sbom.syft.json
            ├── paketo-buildpacks_spring-boot
            │   ├── helper
            │   │   └── sbom.syft.json
            │   └── spring-cloud-bindings
            │       └── sbom.syft.json
            └── sbom.legacy.json

13 directories, 8 files

For the CycloneDX reports (ending with cdx.json) you can download and use the CycleDX CLI or even send the result to the BOM Doctor

For the Syft reports (ending with syft.json) you can download and use the Syft CLI and the Grype CLI.

Merge all Syft reports into one

syft ./app-sbom -o syft-json > syft.json

Converting the Syft reports into one CycloneDX report

syft /tmp/demo-app-sbom -o cyclonedx-json > cyclone.json

Use Grype to evaluate the CVEs from your SBOMs

Read Syft JSON from path on disk:

grype sbom:path/to/syft.json

You can also pipe in Syft JSON directly:

syft /tmp/demo-app-sbom -o json | grype

Edit

Last modified: October 2, 2025