kosli begin trail

Synopsis

kosli begin trail TRAIL-NAME [flags]

Begin or update a Kosli flow trail. You can optionally associate the trail to a git commit using --commit. The commit is read from the git repository at --repo-root, which must be the repository’s top-level directory. Without --commit, no git repository is needed. If --commit is only defaulted from CI and --repo-root is left at ., a missing repository or commit prints a warning and the trail is begun without commit info. You can optionally redact some of the git commit data sent to Kosli using --redact-commit-info. To record repository information, all three of --repo-id, --repo-url, and --repository must be set together. These are automatically set in GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Bitbucket Pipelines, and Azure DevOps. In other CI systems, set them explicitly to capture repository metadata. TRAIL-NAMEs must start with a letter or number, and only contain letters, numbers, ., -, _, and ~.

Flags

Flag	Type	Description
`-g`, `--commit`	string	[defaulted] The git commit from which the trail is begun. (defaulted in some CIs: docs, otherwise unset ). If both `--commit` and `--repo-root` are left at their defaults and the commit cannot be read from the repository, a warning is printed and the trail is begun without commit info.
`--description`	string	[optional] The Kosli trail description.
`-D`, `--dry-run`	bool	[optional] Run in dry-run mode. When enabled, no data is sent to Kosli and the CLI exits with 0 exit code regardless of any errors.
`--external-fingerprint`	stringToString	[optional] A SHA256 fingerprint of an external attachment represented by `--external-url`. The format is label=fingerprint (labels cannot contain ’.’ or ’=’). This flag can be set multiple times. There must be an external url with a matching label for each external fingerprint.
`--external-url`	stringToString	[optional] Add labeled reference URL for an external resource. The format is label=url (labels cannot contain ’.’ or ’=’). This flag can be set multiple times. If the resource is a file or dir, you can optionally add its fingerprint via `--external-fingerprint`
`--flow`	string	The Kosli flow name.
`-h`, `--help`	bool	help for trail
`-o`, `--origin-url`	string	[optional] The url pointing to where the attestation came from or is related. (defaulted to the CI url in some CIs: docs ).
`--redact-commit-info`	strings	[optional] The list of commit info to be redacted before sending to Kosli. Allowed values are one or more of [author, message, branch].
`--repo-id`	string	[conditional] The stable, unique identifier for the repository in your VCS provider (e.g. a numeric ID). Do not use the repository name as it can change if the repo is renamed. All three of `--repo-id`, `--repo-url` and `--repository` must be set to record repository information (defaulted in some CIs: docs ).
`--repo-provider`	string	[optional] The source code hosting provider. One of: github, gitlab, bitbucket, bitbucket_cloud, bitbucket_dc, azure-devops, azure_devops_services, azure_devops_server, git, subversion (defaulted in some CIs: docs ).
`--repo-root`	string	[defaulted] The directory where the source git repository is available. It must be the repository’s top-level directory. Only used if `--commit` is used or defaulted in CI, see docs . (default ”.”)
`--repo-url`	string	[conditional] The URL of the repository. Must be a valid URL. All three of `--repo-id`, `--repo-url` and `--repository` must be set to record repository information (defaulted in some CIs: docs ).
`--repository`	string	[conditional] The name of the repository (e.g. owner/repo-name). All three of `--repo-id`, `--repo-url` and `--repository` must be set to record repository information (defaulted in some CIs: docs ).
`-f`, `--template-file`	string	[optional] The path to a yaml template file.
`-u`, `--user-data`	string	[optional] The path to a JSON file containing additional data you would like to attach to the flow trail. The maximum JSON payload size is 1MB.

Flags inherited from parent commands

Flag	Type	Description
`-a`, `--api-token`	string	The Kosli API token.
`-c`, `--config-file`	string	[optional] The Kosli config file path. Config is read from this path or the default only, never implicitly from the current directory. (default “$HOME/.kosli.yml”)
`--debug`	bool	[optional] Print debug logs to stdout.
`-H`, `--host`	string	[defaulted] The Kosli endpoint. (default “https://app.kosli.com”)
`--http-proxy`	string	[optional] The HTTP proxy URL including protocol and port number. e.g. `http://proxy-server-ip:proxy-port`
`-r`, `--max-api-retries`	int	[defaulted] How many times should API calls be retried when the API host is not reachable. (default 3)
`--org`	string	The Kosli organization.
`-q`, `--quiet`	bool	[optional] Suppress non-critical warning messages. Errors and normal output are not affected. If both `--quiet` and `--debug` are set, `--debug` wins.

Live Examples in different CI systems

GitHub
GitLab

View an example of the kosli begin trail command in GitHub.In this YAML file, which created this Kosli Event.

View an example of the kosli begin trail command in GitLab.In this YAML file, which created this Kosli Event.

Examples Use Cases

These examples all assume that the flags --api-token, --org, --host, (and --flow, --trail when required), are set/provided.

begin/update a Kosli flow trail

kosli begin trail yourTrailName 
	--description yourTrailDescription 
	--template-file /path/to/your/template/file.yml 
	--user-data /path/to/your/user-data/file.json 

Last modified on October 28, 2026

General

Top-level commands

kosli allow

kosli archive

kosli assert

kosli attest

kosli begin

kosli create

kosli delete

kosli diff

kosli disable / enable

kosli evaluate

kosli get

kosli join

kosli list

kosli log

kosli publish

kosli rename

kosli report

kosli rotate

kosli snapshot

kosli unarchive

kosli update

Synopsis

Flags

Flags inherited from parent commands

Live Examples in different CI systems

Examples Use Cases

​Synopsis

​Flags

​Flags inherited from parent commands

​Live Examples in different CI systems

​Examples Use Cases

Synopsis

Flags

Flags inherited from parent commands

Live Examples in different CI systems

Examples Use Cases