Quickstart with Gomboc Community Edition

Introduction

This guide will help you quickly get started with Gomboc Community Edition to fix IaC issues directly in your favorite development workflows. Whether you use VS Code, AI editors like Cursor, or need actionable pull request comments in GitHub, every step is covered to make sure you’re shipping code that’s ready to go live.

🚀 Quick Start


1. Get Started in VS Code

1.1 Sign up in the Portal & create a personal token

  • Go to Gomboc portal and create a Community account (GitHub SSO or email) by clicking "Sign Up".

  • You can choose to sign up with username and password or with GitHub SSO.

    • For username and password, fill out your email, name, and organization

    • For GitHub SSO, click on the "GitHub" option and follow the oauth process to authorize access by selecting "Authorized Gomboc-AI".

  • In the Portal, select the account drop-down from the upper right and click "Settings".

  • Select "Personal Access Tokens" in the account menu.

  • Click Generate Token, name it (e.g., vscode), choose an expiration timeframe, and click "Create".

  • Copy the token to a secure location for safe keeping to finish IDE plugin setup, then click "Done".

1.2 Set up the VSCode plugin

  • Install a VSCode version 1.63.0 or greater. See https://code.visualstudio.com/download.

  • Install the Gomboc Plugin via the marketplace or direct in the IDE:

    • VS Code Marketplace (click "Install") gomboc-vscode-extension

    • VSCode Extensions tab. Search for "Gomboc" and click "Install":

    • When you install the extension, be sure to enable "Auto Update".

  • Once installed, open the product settings by doing one of the following:

    • click the gear icon and select "Settings":

    • Open Settings > Extensions and search for "Gomboc."

  • Paste your Personal Access Token into the Api Key field. Run Gomboc: Test Api Key from the command and enable "Scan on File Save".

1.3 Run your first scan & apply fixes

  • Create a project with a Terraform file.

    • In your IDE, create a new folder called "gomboc-quickstart" and create a new file, main.tf

    • Populate that file with the following content:

      provider "aws" {
        region = "us-east-2"
      }
      
      data "aws_region" "current" {}
      
      resource "aws_dynamodb_table" "test_table_a" {
      }
      
      resource "aws_lambda_function" "myfunction" {
      }
      
      resource "aws_appsync_graphql_api" "test_api" {
        authentication_type = "API_KEY"
      }
      
      resource "aws_keyspaces_table" "mykeyspacestable" {
      }
    • Alternatively, check out https://github.com/Gomboc-AI/rattleback with the following command

      git clone [email protected]:Gomboc-AI/rattleback.git
  • Save the file, triggering Gomboc to scan it

    • Alternatively, click on the search bar and select "Show and Run Commands":

    • Type "Gomboc" into the search and select "Gomboc: Scan current file or scenario":

  • Review the Problems panel → click Apply Fix (or Apply All).

  • Save, test, and commit your changes.

Don’t have a Terraform file handy? go to the dedicated VS Code user docs page get an example code.


2. Automate PR Fixes in GitHub

2.1 Install the Gomboc GitHub App

2.2 Scan & Generate Fixes

  • Edit one of your Terraform files and create a pull request in your selected repo.

  • Gomboc will:

    • Automatically scan your Terraform code

    • Open a new PR with:

      • A clear summary of what was fixed

      • Suggested secure code fixes

2.3 Review Fixes & Share Feedback

  • Head to the PR created by Gomboc, review the description, accept the fixes, and merge.

  • Leave feedback via our GitHub discussions channel.


3. [Advanced] Gomboc MCP Server (Beta)

  • Use your own AI tool like Cursor to interact with Gomboc.

  • Pull the Docker image here

  • Generate/reuse your Personal Access Token

  • Once you have the image and token you can run the following command to run the MCP server

docker run -p 3100:3100\
-e GOMBOC_PAT='GENERATED_GOMBOC_PAT' \
gombocai/mcp:latest

For examples and details go to the dedicated MCP user docs page.


Need help? Leave feedback via our GitHub discussions channel.


Discover Gomboc

Our guides will help you set up Gomboc quickly and easily. Learn Gomboc terminology, configure the necessary prerequisites, onboard your organization, and understand the complete Gomboc workflow.

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