Attesting large documents (SBOMs, SARIF, vulnerability reports)

How to attest large security and compliance reports in Kosli using summary attestations and the Evidence Vault

In this tutorial, we will attest a large security report to Kosli using a lightweight summary for compliance evaluation, with the full document preserved in the Evidence Vault for audit purposes. By the end, you will have a Kosli attestation that captures the key facts from your report — vulnerability counts, severity levels, pass/fail status — and links to the full file for audit access.

This two-part approach keeps attestation payloads focused on what compliance rules need to evaluate, while ensuring the raw evidence remains available.

Prerequisites

• Install Kosli CLI.
• Get a Kosli API token.
• A Kosli flow and trail to attest to — follow the Getting started guide if you need one.
• A report file to attest (e.g. an SBOM in JSON format, or a SARIF vulnerability report).

Step 1: Create a summary attestation type

Define a custom attestation type that captures the key facts from your report. In this example we use a vulnerability report distilled into a summary JSON file:

{
  "critical": 0,
  "high": 2,
  "medium": 14,
  "low": 37
}

Create an attestation type that enforces a zero-critical-findings rule:

kosli create attestation-type vulnerability-summary \
  --description "Summary of vulnerability scan findings" \
  --jq '.critical == 0'

You should see: attestation-type vulnerability-summary was created.

You can verify it with:

kosli get attestation-type vulnerability-summary

Step 2: Distill your report into a summary

Use jq (or any other tool) to extract the fields you care about from your full report and write them to a summary file.

For example, if your tool produces a SARIF file, you might count findings by severity and write the result to vuln-summary.json.

The exact transformation will depend on your tool’s output format. The goal is a small JSON object that your attestation type’s rules can evaluate.

Step 3: Attest the summary and attach the full report

Use --attachments to upload the full report to the Evidence Vault alongside the summary attestation:

kosli attest custom \
  --type vulnerability-summary \
  --name security-scan \
  --flow <your-flow-name> \
  --trail <your-trail-name> \
  --attestation-data vuln-summary.json \
  --attachments full-report.sarif

Kosli will:

• Evaluate the jq rule against vuln-summary.json to determine compliance.
• Store full-report.sarif in the Evidence Vault, linked to this attestation.

Step 4: Verify the attestation

kosli get attestation <attestation-name> \
  --flow <your-flow-name> \
  --trail <your-trail-name>

The attestation record will show the compliance status and include a link to the attached file in the Evidence Vault.

What you’ve accomplished

You have attested a security report to Kosli using a lightweight summary for compliance evaluation, with the full document preserved in the Evidence Vault for audit purposes.

From here you can:

• Read the kosli create attestation-type reference for all available options.
• Read the kosli attest custom reference for attesting to artifacts.
• Review naming conventions for attestation types.