Running Nuclei - ProjectDiscovery Documentation

How to Run Nuclei

Nuclei templates offer two primary execution methods:

Supported Input Formats

For automation in pipelines, see Running Nuclei in CI/CD. Nuclei supports various input formats to run template against, including urls, hosts, ips, cidrs, asn, openapi, swagger, proxify, burpsuite exported data and more. To learn more on using input specify options, you can refer nuclei input formats. These inputs can be given to nuclei using -l and -input-mode flags.

  -l, -list string              path to file containing a list of target URLs/hosts to scan (one per line)
  -im, -input-mode string       mode of input file (list, burp, jsonl, yaml, openapi, swagger) (default "list")

Executing nuclei against a list of inputs (urls, hosts, ips, cidrs, asn) is as simple as running the following command:

  nuclei -l targets.txt

For running other input formats (burp, jsonl, yaml, openapi, swagger), you can use the -im flag to specify the input mode.

  nuclei -l targets.burp -im burp

  nuclei -l openapi.yaml -im openapi

and so on.

Executing Nuclei Templates

-t/templates Default Templates Most community templates from our nuclei-template repository are executed by default, directly from the standard installation path. The typical command is as follows:

nuclei -u https://example.com

However, there are some exceptions regarding the templates that run by default:

Certain tags and templates listed in the default .nuclei-ignore file are not included.
Code Templates require the -code flag to execute.
Headless Templates will not run unless you pass the -headless flag.
Fuzzing Templates will not run unless you pass the -fuzz flag.

You can also run templates against a list of URLs:

nuclei -list http_urls.txt

Custom Templates To run a custom template directory or multiple directories, use the following command structure:

nuclei -u https://example.com -t cves/ -t exposures/

Templates from custom GitHub repositories, stored under the github directory, can be executed with this command:

nuclei -u https://example.com -t github/private-repo

You can also directly run a template from any ProjectDiscovery Cloud Platform URL like this:

nuclei -u https://example.com -t https://cloud.projectdiscovery.io/public/tech-detect

Executing Template Workflows

-w/workflows Workflows can be executed using the following command:

nuclei -u https://example.com -w workflows/

Similarly, Workflows can be executed against a list of URLs.

nuclei -list http_urls.txt -w workflows/wordpress-workflow.yaml

Types of Templates

Template Filters

Nuclei engine supports three basic filters to customize template execution.

Tags (-tags) Filter based on tags field available in the template.
Severity (-severity) Filter based on severity field available in the template.
Author (-author) Filter based on author field available in the template.

By default, filters apply to templates below the active template root. Use a template path to limit the scan to another location. For example, the following command runs templates from the active template root that have the cve tag.

nuclei -u https://example.com -tags cve

This example limits the scan to the exposures/ directory below the active template root and selects templates with the config tag.

nuclei -u https://example.com -tags config -t exposures/

Multiple filters works together with AND condition, below example runs all templates with cve tags AND has critical OR high severity AND geeknik as author of template.

nuclei -u https://example.com -tags cve -severity critical,high -author geeknik

Advanced Filters

Multiple filters can also be combined using the template condition flag (-tc) that allows complex expressions like the following ones:

nuclei -tc "contains(id,'xss') || contains(tags,'xss')"
nuclei -tc "contains(tags,'cve') && contains(tags,'ssrf')"
nuclei -tc "contains(name, 'Local File Inclusion')"

The supported fields are:

id string
name string
description string
tags slice of strings
authors slice of strings
severity string
protocol string
http_method slice of strings
body string (containing all request bodies if any)
matcher_type slice of string
extractor_type slice of string
description string

Also, every key-value pair from the template metadata section is accessible. All fields can be combined with logical operators (|| and &&) and used with DSL helper functions. Similarly, all filters are supported in workflows as well.

nuclei -w workflows/wordpress-workflow.yaml -severity critical,high -list http_urls.txt

WorkflowsIn Workflows, Nuclei filters are applied on templates or sub-templates running via workflows, not on the workflows itself.

Public Templates

Nuclei has built-in support for automatic template download/update from nuclei templates project which provides community-contributed list of ready-to-use templates that is constantly updated. Nuclei checks for new community template releases upon each execution and automatically downloads the latest version when available. optionally, this feature can be disabled using the -duc cli flag or the configuration file.

Template storage and discovery

Nuclei selects the active public template root in this order:

The final -update-template-dir value after configuration and CLI precedence are applied.
NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_DIR.
A previously persisted template path, including one migrated from legacy state.
The XDG default selection.

If no explicit or persisted path is available, Nuclei checks the XDG locations in this order:

An existing $XDG_DATA_HOME/nuclei/nuclei-templates directory.
The first existing $XDG_DATA_DIRS/nuclei/nuclei-templates directory, using the listed XDG preference order.
$XDG_DATA_HOME/nuclei/nuclei-templates as the installation target when no existing root is found.

A root discovered through XDG_DATA_DIRS behaves like any other active template root. Nuclei can install, update, regenerate metadata, and reset it when filesystem permissions allow. The XDG location controls discovery order only; it does not establish ownership. Template installations and updates place .nuclei-ignore in the active root. If the active file is missing, Nuclei logs a warning and continues without its default ignore exclusions. If the file exists but cannot be opened or parsed, Nuclei stops before template execution and reports the active path and underlying error. Repair or restore the file before running Nuclei again.

Custom Templates

Users can create custom templates on a personal public / private GitHub / AWS Bucket that they wish to run / update while using nuclei from any environment without manually downloading the GitHub repository everywhere. To use this feature, users need to set the following environment variables:

For GitHub Project

export GITHUB_TOKEN=gh_XXX
export GITHUB_TEMPLATE_REPO=my_nuclei_template

For GitLab Project

export GITLAB_SERVER_URL=https://gitlab.com
# The GitLab token must have the read_api and read_repository scope
export GITLAB_TOKEN=XXXXXXXXXX
# Comma separated list of repository IDs (not names)
export GITLAB_REPOSITORY_IDS=12345,67890

For AWS Bucket

export AWS_ACCESS_KEY=AKIAXXXXXXXX
export AWS_SECRET_KEY=XXXXXX
export AWS_REGION=us-xxx-1
export AWS_TEMPLATE_BUCKET=aws_bucket_name

For Azure Blob Storage

export AZURE_TENANT_ID=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
export AZURE_CLIENT_ID=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
export AZURE_CLIENT_SECRET=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
export AZURE_SERVICE_URL=https://XXXXXXXXXX.blob.core.windows.net/
export AZURE_CONTAINER_NAME=templates

Environment variables can also be provided to disable download from default and custom template locations:

# Disable download from the default nuclei-templates project
export DISABLE_NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_PUBLIC_DOWNLOAD=true

# Disable download from public / private GitHub project(s)
export DISABLE_NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_GITHUB_DOWNLOAD=true

# Disable download from public / private GitLab project(s)
export DISABLE_NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_GITLAB_DOWNLOAD=true

# Disable download from public / private AWS Bucket(s)
export DISABLE_NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_AWS_DOWNLOAD=true

# Disable download from public / private Azure Blob Storage
export DISABLE_NUCLEI_TEMPLATES_AZURE_DOWNLOAD=true

After setting the environment variables, run the following command to download the custom templates:

nuclei -update-templates

Nuclei stores downloaded provider templates below the active public template root. The directory structure of the custom templates looks as follows:

<active-template-root>/
├── github/$GH_REPO_NAME # Custom templates downloaded from public / private GitHub project
├── gitlab/$GL_REPO_NAME # Custom templates downloaded from public / private GitLab project
├── s3/$BUCKET_NAME # Custom templates downloaded from public / private AWS Bucket
└── azure/$CONTAINER_NAME # Custom templates downloaded from public / private Azure Blob Storage

Users can then use the custom templates with the -t flag as follows:

nuclei -t github/my_custom_template -u https://example.com

The nuclei engine can be updated to latest version by using the -update flag.

Writing your own unique templates will always keep you one step ahead of others.

AI-Powered Template Generation

-ai Nuclei supports generating and running templates on-the-fly using AI capabilities powered by the ProjectDiscovery API. This feature allows you to perform quick, targeted scans without needing pre-written templates by describing what you want to detect in natural language. Prerequisites:

A ProjectDiscovery API key (Get one at cloud.projectdiscovery.io)
Configure your API key using one of these methods: Method 1: Using CLI (Recommended)
nuclei -auth # Enter your API key when prompted
Method 2: Environment Variable
export PDCP_API_KEY=your_api_key_here

Basic Usage:

Finding Sensitive Information Leaks:

nuclei -list targets.txt -ai "Find admin_api_key in response"

Detecting Debug Information:

nuclei -list targets.txt -ai "Detect exposed stack traces in error messages"

Discovering Admin Interfaces:

nuclei -list targets.txt -ai "Find admin login endpoints"

Identifying Exposed Secrets:

nuclei -list urls.txt -ai "Detect secrets in response"

Extract Page Titles

nuclei -list targets.txt -ai "Extract page titles"

The -ai flag requires an active internet connection to communicate with the ProjectDiscovery API. Generated templates are stored both locally on your computer and in your ProjectDiscovery cloud account for future reference. For privacy, your prompts and generated templates are not used for AI training.Currently, each user is limited to 100 AI template generation queries per day. This limit is subject to change based on usage patterns and to prevent abuse.

Nuclei Flags

nuclei -h

This will display help for the tool. Here are all the switches it supports.

Nuclei is a fast, template based vulnerability scanner focusing
on extensive configurability, massive extensibility and ease of use.

Usage:
  nuclei [flags]

Flags:
TARGET:
   -u, -target string[]          target URLs/hosts to scan
   -l, -list string              path to file containing a list of target URLs/hosts to scan (one per line)
   -eh, -exclude-hosts string[]  hosts to exclude to scan from the input list (ip, cidr, hostname)
   -resume string                resume scan using resume.cfg (clustering will be disabled)
   -sa, -scan-all-ips            scan all the IP's associated with dns record
   -iv, -ip-version string[]     IP version to scan of hostname (4,6) - (default 4)

TARGET-FORMAT:
   -im, -input-mode string        mode of input file (list, burp, jsonl, yaml, openapi, swagger) (default "list")
   -ro, -required-only            use only required fields in input format when generating requests
   -sfv, -skip-format-validation  skip format validation (like missing vars) when parsing input file

TEMPLATES:
   -nt, -new-templates                    run only new templates added in latest nuclei-templates release
   -ntv, -new-templates-version string[]  run new templates added in specific version
   -as, -automatic-scan                   automatic web scan using wappalyzer technology detection to tags mapping
   -t, -templates string[]                list of template or template directory to run (comma-separated, file)
   -turl, -template-url string[]          template url or list containing template urls to run (comma-separated, file)
   -ai, -prompt string                    generate and run template using ai prompt
   -w, -workflows string[]                list of workflow or workflow directory to run (comma-separated, file)
   -wurl, -workflow-url string[]          workflow url or list containing workflow urls to run (comma-separated, file)
   -validate                              validate the passed templates to nuclei
   -nss, -no-strict-syntax                disable strict syntax check on templates
   -td, -template-display                 displays the templates content
   -tl                                    list all available templates
   -tgl                                   list all available tags
   -sign                                  signs the templates with the private key defined in NUCLEI_SIGNATURE_PRIVATE_KEY env variable
   -code                                  enable loading code protocol-based templates
   -dut, -disable-unsigned-templates      disable running unsigned templates or templates with mismatched signature
   -esc, -enable-self-contained           enable loading self-contained templates
   -egm, -enable-global-matchers          enable loading global matchers templates
   -file                                  enable loading file templates

FILTERING:
   -a, -author string[]               templates to run based on authors (comma-separated, file)
   -tags string[]                     templates to run based on tags (comma-separated, file)
   -etags, -exclude-tags string[]     templates to exclude based on tags (comma-separated, file)
   -itags, -include-tags string[]     tags to be executed even if they are excluded either by default or configuration
   -id, -template-id string[]         templates to run based on template ids (comma-separated, file, allow-wildcard)
   -eid, -exclude-id string[]         templates to exclude based on template ids (comma-separated, file)
   -it, -include-templates string[]   path to template file or directory to be executed even if they are excluded either by default or configuration
   -et, -exclude-templates string[]   path to template file or directory to exclude (comma-separated, file)
   -em, -exclude-matchers string[]    template matchers to exclude in result
   -s, -severity value[]              templates to run based on severity. Possible values: info, low, medium, high, critical, unknown
   -es, -exclude-severity value[]     templates to exclude based on severity. Possible values: info, low, medium, high, critical, unknown
   -pt, -type value[]                 templates to run based on protocol type. Possible values: dns, file, http, headless, tcp, workflow, ssl, websocket, whois, code, javascript
   -ept, -exclude-type value[]        templates to exclude based on protocol type. Possible values: dns, file, http, headless, tcp, workflow, ssl, websocket, whois, code, javascript
   -tc, -template-condition string[]  templates to run based on expression condition

OUTPUT:
   -o, -output string            output file to write found issues/vulnerabilities
   -sresp, -store-resp           store all request/response passed through nuclei to output directory
   -srd, -store-resp-dir string  store all request/response passed through nuclei to custom directory (default "output")
   -silent                       display findings only
   -nc, -no-color                disable output content coloring (ANSI escape codes)
   -j, -jsonl                    write output in JSONL(ines) format
   -irr, -include-rr -omit-raw   include request/response pairs in the JSON, JSONL, and Markdown outputs (for findings only) [DEPRECATED use -omit-raw] (default true)
   -or, -omit-raw                omit request/response pairs in the JSON, JSONL, and Markdown outputs (for findings only)
   -ot, -omit-template           omit encoded template in the JSON, JSONL output
   -nm, -no-meta                 disable printing result metadata in cli output
   -ts, -timestamp               enables printing timestamp in cli output
   -rdb, -report-db string       nuclei reporting database (always use this to persist report data)
   -ms, -matcher-status          display match failure status
   -me, -markdown-export string  directory to export results in markdown format
   -se, -sarif-export string     file to export results in SARIF format
   -je, -json-export string      file to export results in JSON format
   -jle, -jsonl-export string    file to export results in JSONL(ine) format
   -rd, -redact string[]         redact given list of keys from query parameter, request header and body

CONFIGURATIONS:
   -config string                        path to the nuclei configuration file
   -tp, -profile string                  template profile config file to run
   -tpl, -profile-list                   list community template profiles
   -fr, -follow-redirects                enable following redirects for http templates
   -fhr, -follow-host-redirects          follow redirects on the same host
   -mr, -max-redirects int               max number of redirects to follow for http templates (default 10)
   -dr, -disable-redirects               disable redirects for http templates
   -rc, -report-config string            nuclei reporting module configuration file
   -H, -header string[]                  custom header/cookie to include in all http request in header:value format (cli, file)
   -V, -var value                        custom vars in key=value format
   -r, -resolvers string                 file containing resolver list for nuclei
   -sr, -system-resolvers                use system DNS resolving as error fallback
   -dc, -disable-clustering              disable clustering of requests
   -passive                              enable passive HTTP response processing mode
   -fh2, -force-http2                    force http2 connection on requests
   -ev, -env-vars                        enable environment variables to be used in template
   -cc, -client-cert string              client certificate file (PEM-encoded) used for authenticating against scanned hosts
   -ck, -client-key string               client key file (PEM-encoded) used for authenticating against scanned hosts
   -ca, -client-ca string                client certificate authority file (PEM-encoded) used for authenticating against scanned hosts
   -sml, -show-match-line                show match lines for file templates, works with extractors only
   -ztls                                 use ztls library with autofallback to standard one for tls13 [Deprecated] autofallback to ztls is enabled by default
   -sni string                           tls sni hostname to use (default: input domain name)
   -dka, -dialer-keep-alive value        keep-alive duration for network requests.
   -lfa, -allow-local-file-access        allows file (payload) access anywhere on the system
   -lna, -restrict-local-network-access  blocks connections to the local / private network
   -i, -interface string                 network interface to use for network scan
   -at, -attack-type string              type of payload combinations to perform (batteringram,pitchfork,clusterbomb)
   -sip, -source-ip string               source ip address to use for network scan
   -rsr, -response-size-read int         max response size to read in bytes
   -rss, -response-size-save int         max response size to read in bytes (default 1048576)
   -reset                                reset removes all nuclei configuration and data files (including nuclei-templates)
   -tlsi, -tls-impersonate               enable experimental client hello (ja3) tls randomization
   -hae, -http-api-endpoint string       experimental http api endpoint

INTERACTSH:
   -iserver, -interactsh-server string  interactsh server url for self-hosted instance (default: oast.pro,oast.live,oast.site,oast.online,oast.fun,oast.me)
   -itoken, -interactsh-token string    authentication token for self-hosted interactsh server
   -interactions-cache-size int         number of requests to keep in the interactions cache (default 5000)
   -interactions-eviction int           number of seconds to wait before evicting requests from cache (default 60)
   -interactions-poll-duration int      number of seconds to wait before each interaction poll request (default 5)
   -interactions-cooldown-period int    extra time for interaction polling before exiting (default 5)
   -ni, -no-interactsh                  disable interactsh server for OAST testing, exclude OAST based templates

FUZZING:
   -ft, -fuzzing-type string           overrides fuzzing type set in template (replace, prefix, postfix, infix)
   -fm, -fuzzing-mode string           overrides fuzzing mode set in template (multiple, single)
   -fuzz                               enable loading fuzzing templates (Deprecated: use -dast instead)
   -dast                               enable / run dast (fuzz) nuclei templates
   -dts, -dast-server                  enable dast server mode (live fuzzing)
   -dtr, -dast-report                  write dast scan report to file
   -dtst, -dast-server-token string    dast server token (optional)
   -dtsa, -dast-server-address string  dast server address (default "localhost:9055")
   -dfp, -display-fuzz-points          display fuzz points in the output for debugging
   -fuzz-param-frequency int           frequency of uninteresting parameters for fuzzing before skipping (default 10)
   -fa, -fuzz-aggression string        fuzzing aggression level controls payload count for fuzz (low, medium, high) (default "low")
   -cs, -fuzz-scope string[]           in scope url regex to be followed by fuzzer
   -cos, -fuzz-out-scope string[]      out of scope url regex to be excluded by fuzzer

UNCOVER:
   -uc, -uncover                  enable uncover engine
   -uq, -uncover-query string[]   uncover search query
   -ue, -uncover-engine string[]  uncover search engine (shodan,censys,fofa,shodan-idb,quake,hunter,zoomeye,netlas,criminalip,publicwww,hunterhow,google,odin,binaryedge) (default shodan)
   -uf, -uncover-field string     uncover fields to return (ip,port,host) (default "ip:port")
   -ul, -uncover-limit int        uncover results to return (default 100)
   -ur, -uncover-ratelimit int    override ratelimit of engines with unknown ratelimit (default 60 req/min) (default 60)

RATE-LIMIT:
   -rl, -rate-limit int               maximum number of requests to send per second (default 150)
   -rld, -rate-limit-duration value   maximum number of requests to send per second (default 1s)
   -rlm, -rate-limit-minute int       maximum number of requests to send per minute (DEPRECATED)
   -bs, -bulk-size int                maximum number of hosts to be analyzed in parallel per template (default 25)
   -c, -concurrency int               maximum number of templates to be executed in parallel (default 25)
   -hbs, -headless-bulk-size int      maximum number of headless hosts to be analyzed in parallel per template (default 10)
   -headc, -headless-concurrency int  maximum number of headless templates to be executed in parallel (default 10)
   -jsc, -js-concurrency int          maximum number of javascript runtimes to be executed in parallel (default 120)
   -pc, -payload-concurrency int      max payload concurrency for each template (default 25)
   -prc, -probe-concurrency int       http probe concurrency with httpx (default 50)

OPTIMIZATIONS:
   -timeout int                     time to wait in seconds before timeout (default 10)
   -retries int                     number of times to retry a failed request (default 1)
   -ldp, -leave-default-ports       leave default HTTP/HTTPS ports (eg. host:80,host:443)
   -mhe, -max-host-error int        max errors for a host before skipping from scan (default 30)
   -te, -track-error string[]       adds given error to max-host-error watchlist (standard, file)
   -nmhe, -no-mhe                   disable skipping host from scan based on errors
   -project                         use a project folder to avoid sending same request multiple times
   -project-path string             set a specific project path (default "/var/folders/ny/g1md_dq528v3n6vlmp_77hpw0000gn/T/")
   -spm, -stop-at-first-match       stop processing HTTP requests after the first match (may break template/workflow logic)
   -stream                          stream mode - start elaborating without sorting the input
   -ss, -scan-strategy value        strategy to use while scanning(auto/host-spray/template-spray) (default auto)
   -irt, -input-read-timeout value  timeout on input read (default 3m0s)
   -nh, -no-httpx                   disable httpx probing for non-url input
   -no-stdin                        disable stdin processing

HEADLESS:
   -headless                        enable templates that require headless browser support (root user on Linux will disable sandbox)
   -page-timeout int                seconds to wait for each page in headless mode (default 20)
   -sb, -show-browser               show the browser on the screen when running templates with headless mode
   -ho, -headless-options string[]  start headless chrome with additional options
   -sc, -system-chrome              use local installed Chrome browser instead of nuclei installed
   -lha, -list-headless-action      list available headless actions

DEBUG:
   -debug                     show all requests and responses
   -dreq, -debug-req          show all sent requests
   -dresp, -debug-resp        show all received responses
   -p, -proxy string[]        list of http/socks5 proxy to use (comma separated or file input)
   -pi, -proxy-internal       proxy all internal requests
   -ldf, -list-dsl-function   list all supported DSL function signatures
   -tlog, -trace-log string   file to write sent requests trace log
   -elog, -error-log string   file to write sent requests error log
   -version                   show nuclei version
   -hm, -hang-monitor         enable nuclei hang monitoring
   -v, -verbose               show verbose output
   -profile-mem string        generate memory (heap) profile & trace files
   -vv                        display templates loaded for scan
   -svd, -show-var-dump       show variables dump for debugging
   -vdl, -var-dump-limit int  limit the number of characters displayed in var dump (default 255)
   -ep, -enable-pprof         enable pprof debugging server
   -tv, -templates-version    shows the version of the installed nuclei-templates
   -hc, -health-check         run diagnostic check up

UPDATE:
   -up, -update                      update nuclei engine to the latest released version
   -ut, -update-templates            update nuclei-templates to latest released version
   -ud, -update-template-dir string  custom directory to install / update nuclei-templates
   -duc, -disable-update-check       disable automatic nuclei/templates update check

STATISTICS:
   -stats                    display statistics about the running scan
   -sj, -stats-json          display statistics in JSONL(ines) format
   -si, -stats-interval int  number of seconds to wait between showing a statistics update (default 5)
   -mp, -metrics-port int    port to expose nuclei metrics on (default 9092)
   -hps, -http-stats         enable http status capturing (experimental)

CLOUD:
   -auth                           configure projectdiscovery cloud (pdcp) api key (default true)
   -tid, -team-id string           upload scan results to given team id (optional) (default "none")
   -cup, -cloud-upload             upload scan results to pdcp dashboard [DEPRECATED use -dashboard]
   -sid, -scan-id string           upload scan results to existing scan id (optional)
   -sname, -scan-name string       scan name to set (optional)
   -pd, -dashboard                 upload / view nuclei results in projectdiscovery cloud (pdcp) UI dashboard
   -pdu, -dashboard-upload string  upload / view nuclei results file (jsonl) in projectdiscovery cloud (pdcp) UI dashboard

AUTHENTICATION:
   -sf, -secret-file string[]  path to config file containing secrets for nuclei authenticated scan
   -ps, -prefetch-secrets      prefetch secrets from the secrets file


EXAMPLES:
Run nuclei on single host:
        $ nuclei -target example.com

Run nuclei with specific template directories:
        $ nuclei -target example.com -t http/cves/ -t ssl

Run nuclei against a list of hosts:
        $ nuclei -list hosts.txt

Run nuclei with a JSON output:
        $ nuclei -target example.com -json-export output.json

Run nuclei with sorted Markdown outputs (with environment variables):
        $ MARKDOWN_EXPORT_SORT_MODE=template nuclei -target example.com -markdown-export nuclei_report/

Additional documentation is available at: https://docs.nuclei.sh/getting-started/running

From Nuclei v3.0.0 -metrics port has been removed and merged with -stats when using -stats flag metrics will be by default available at localhost:9092/metrics and metrics-port can be configured by -metrics-port flag

Rate Limits

Nuclei have multiple rate limit controls for multiple factors, including a number of templates to execute in parallel, a number of hosts to be scanned in parallel for each template, and the global number of request / per second you wanted to make/limit using nuclei, here is an example of each flag with description.

Flag	Description
rate-limit	Control the total number of request to send per seconds
bulk-size	Control the number of hosts to process in parallel for each template
c	Control the number of templates to process in parallel

Feel free to play with these flags to tune your nuclei scan speed and accuracy. For more details on tuning these flag, you can refer mass-scanning-cli

rate-limit flag takes precedence over the other two flags, the number of requests/seconds can’t go beyond the value defined for rate-limit flag regardless the value of c and bulk-size flag.

Traffic Tagging

Many bug bounty programs require you to identify your HTTP traffic. Set a custom header in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nuclei/config.yaml, in $NUCLEI_CONFIG_DIR/config.yaml, or with the -H / header CLI flag.

Setting custom header using config file

# Headers to include with each request.
header:
  - 'X-BugBounty-Hacker: h1/geekboy'
  - 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) / nuclei'

Setting custom header using CLI flag

nuclei -header 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) / nuclei' -list urls.txt -tags cves

Template Exclusion

Nuclei supports a variety of methods for excluding / blocking templates from execution. By default, nuclei excludes the tags/templates listed below from execution to avoid unexpected fuzz based scans and some that are not supposed to run for mass scan, and these can be easily overwritten with nuclei configuration file / flags. Nuclei engine supports two ways to manually exclude templates from scan,

Exclude Templates (-exclude-templates/exclude) exclude-templates flag is used to exclude single or multiple templates and directory, multiple -exclude-templates flag can be used to provide multiple values.
Exclude Tags (-exclude-tags/etags) exclude-tags flag is used to exclude templates based in defined tags, single or multiple can be used to exclude templates.

Example of excluding single template

nuclei -list urls.txt -t cves/ -exclude-templates cves/2020/CVE-2020-XXXX.yaml

Example of multiple template exclusion

nuclei -list urls.txt -exclude-templates exposed-panels/ -exclude-templates technologies/

Example of excluding templates with single tag

nuclei -l urls.txt -t cves/ -etags xss

Example of excluding templates with multiple tags

nuclei -l urls.txt -t cves/ -etags sqli,rce

The .nuclei-ignore file in the active template root lists the tags and templates excluded by default.

Do not modify the active .nuclei-ignore file. Nuclei can replace it during a template update. To override the denylist, use Nuclei configuration or the include flags.

To prioritize certain templates or tags over the .nuclei-ignore file or denylist, you must use the -include-templates or -include-tags flags. This will ensure that the specified templates or tags take precedence over any .nuclei-ignore or denylist entries.

Example of running blocked templates

nuclei -l urls.txt -include-tags iot,misc,fuzz

Example of executing a specific template that is in the denylistSay that you have custom templates globbed (*) in the denylist on the Nuclei configuration file.

# ...

exclude-templates:
  - 'custom/**/*.yaml'

But you just want to execute a specific template.

nuclei -l urls.txt -include-templates custom/specific-template.yaml

List Template Path

-tl option in Nuclei is used to list the paths of templates, rather than executing them. This can help you inspect which templates would be used for scan given your current template filter.

# Command to list templates (-tl)
nuclei -tags cve -severity critical,high -author geeknik -tl

Scan on internet database

Nuclei supports integration with uncover module that supports services like Shodan, Censys, Hunter, Zoomeye, many more to execute Nuclei on these databases. Here are uncover options to use -

nuclei -h uncover

UNCOVER:
   -uc, -uncover                  enable uncover engine
   -uq, -uncover-query string[]   uncover search query
   -ue, -uncover-engine string[]  uncover search engine (shodan,shodan-idb,fofa,censys,quake,hunter,zoomeye,netlas,criminalip) (default shodan)
   -uf, -uncover-field string     uncover fields to return (ip,port,host) (default "ip:port")
   -ul, -uncover-limit int        uncover results to return (default 100)
   -ucd, -uncover-delay int       delay between uncover query requests in seconds (0 to disable) (default 1)

You need to set the API key of the engine you are using as an environment variable in your shell.

export SHODAN_API_KEY=xxx
export CENSYS_API_ID=xxx
export CENSYS_API_SECRET=xxx
export FOFA_EMAIL=xxx
export FOFA_KEY=xxx
export QUAKE_TOKEN=xxx
export HUNTER_API_KEY=xxx
export ZOOMEYE_API_KEY=xxx

Required API keys can be obtained by signing up on following platform Shodan, Censys, Fofa, Quake, Hunter and ZoomEye . Example of template execution using a search query.

export SHODAN_API_KEY=xxx
nuclei -id 'CVE-2021-26855' -uq 'vuln:CVE-2021-26855' -ue shodan

It can also read queries from templates metadata and execute template against hosts returned by uncover for that query. Example of template execution using template-defined search queries. Template snippet of CVE-2021-26855

metadata:
  shodan-query: 'vuln:CVE-2021-26855'

nuclei -t cves/2021/CVE-2021-26855.yaml -uncover
nuclei -tags cve -uncover

We can update the nuclei configuration file to include these tags for all scans.

Nuclei Config

Nuclei loads configuration from the standard XDG locations:

Each $XDG_CONFIG_DIRS/nuclei/config.yaml file is an optional, read-only system configuration. Nuclei loads the directories in reverse order so earlier entries in XDG_CONFIG_DIRS have higher priority.
On Unix, /etc/nuclei/config.yaml is an optional local system override. It has higher priority than every XDG_CONFIG_DIRS file and lower priority than the user configuration.
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nuclei/config.yaml is the writable user configuration. If the XDG variables are not set, Nuclei uses the platform defaults, such as /etc/xdg and $HOME/.config on Linux.

Set NUCLEI_CONFIG_DIR to use $NUCLEI_CONFIG_DIR/config.yaml instead of the XDG user configuration. When that file is missing, Nuclei copies the XDG user configuration if one exists. Otherwise, it generates a new file with the built-in options commented out. Generated user files never include values from system configuration. If the active user path also appears in XDG_CONFIG_DIRS, Nuclei loads it only once, as the writable user configuration. Nuclei applies configuration sources from lowest to highest priority: A higher-priority file replaces collections from lower-priority files rather than appending to them. Use an empty list ([]) to clear a collection. An explicit CLI flag always wins, even when its value matches the built-in default. Configuration files can select a config or profile path, and higher-priority sources can change that selection. A selected config cannot redirect to another config. A selected profile cannot redirect to another config or profile. If Nuclei cannot read or parse an automatic system or user configuration, it prints a warning and ignores all automatic layers. It still applies any config file, profile, and CLI values selected explicitly on the command line. An error in any selected config or profile stops startup. Immediate actions such as reset, version, and templates-version are CLI-only. The auth setting is also accepted only from the command line. Equivalent YAML keys do not run these actions. Update settings such as update, update-templates, update-template-dir, and disable-update-check continue to work in configuration files.

Template profiles

The profile setting accepts a file path or an extensionless community profile ID. For a relative YAML file path, Nuclei checks the current directory first and then profiles/ in the active template root. For a profile ID, it searches that profile directory and its subdirectories for a matching YAML file. A profile can provide targets through a multiline targets-inline value. A multiline list value also becomes inline targets, while a single-line list value remains a file path. Nuclei trims each target and ignores blank lines and lines that start with #. Profiles can include a secrets section. Nuclei creates a private temporary directory and writes the secrets to a file with mode 0600 for the scan. It removes the directory after normal exit, interruption, or a fatal error.

Storage locations

Nuclei keeps configuration, installed data, persistent state, and regenerable cache in separate directories:

Purpose	Default location
User configuration	`$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/nuclei`
Public template installation target	`$XDG_DATA_HOME/nuclei/nuclei-templates`
Restart-persistent state	`$XDG_STATE_HOME/nuclei`
Regenerable cache	`$XDG_CACHE_HOME/nuclei`

NUCLEI_CONFIG_DIR remains a compatibility override for the user configuration directory, including config.yaml, signing keys, and reporting configuration. It does not change the XDG data, state, or cache locations. Nuclei stores the active template path and version metadata in $XDG_STATE_HOME/nuclei/templates.json with file mode 0600. On startup, it reads this file first. If the file does not exist, Nuclei reads the legacy .templates-config.json, writes templates.json atomically, and leaves the legacy file in place for compatibility. If templates.json exists but cannot be read or parsed, Nuclei reports an error instead of falling back to the legacy file. Generated resume-*.cfg and crash-resume-file-*.dump files are stored under $XDG_STATE_HOME/nuclei. Nuclei uses an explicit -resume path unchanged. The catalog index is stored under $XDG_CACHE_HOME/nuclei. The -health-check output reports the config, state, and cache directories separately. It checks configuration initialization and read/write access for config.yaml, templates.json, the active .nuclei-ignore, and the active template checksum. The -reset command validates every deletion target before removing the configuration, state, cache, and active template root. Here is an example config file:

# Headers to include with all HTTP request
header:
  - 'X-BugBounty-Hacker: h1/geekboy'

# Directory based template execution
templates:
  - cves/
  - vulnerabilities/
  - misconfiguration/

# Template Filters
tags: exposures,cve
author: geeknik,pikpikcu,dhiyaneshdk
severity: critical,high,medium

# Template Allowlist
# 
# Note: This will take precedence over the .nuclei-ignore file and denylist
# entries (exclude-tags or exclude-templates list).
include-tags: dos,fuzz # Tag based inclusion
include-templates: # Template based inclusion
  - vulnerabilities/xxx
  - misconfiguration/xxxx

# Template Denylist
exclude-tags: info # Tag based exclusion
exclude-templates: # Template based exclusion
  - vulnerabilities/xxx
  - misconfiguration/xxxx

# Rate Limit configuration
rate-limit: 500
bulk-size: 50
concurrency: 50

Once configured, the active user configuration is used by default. Use -config to add one higher-priority config file for a command.

Running nuclei with custom config file

nuclei -config project.yaml -list urls.txt

Nuclei Result Dashboard

Nuclei now allows seamless integration with the ProjectDiscovery Cloud Platform to simplify the visualization of Nuclei results and generate swift reports. This highly requested feature from the community enables easier handling of scan results with minimal effort. Follow the steps below to set up your PDCP Result Dashboard:

Visit https://cloud.projectdiscovery.io to create free PDCP API key.

Use the nuclei -auth command, enter your API key when prompted.
To perform a scan and upload the results straight to the cloud, use the -cloud-upload option while running a nuclei scan.

An example command might look like this:

nuclei -target http://honey.scanme.sh -cloud-upload

And the output would be like this:

                     __     _
   ____  __  _______/ /__  (_)
  / __ \/ / / / ___/ / _ \/ /
 / / / / /_/ / /__/ /  __/ /
/_/ /_/\__,_/\___/_/\___/_/   v3.1.0

      projectdiscovery.io

[INF] Current nuclei version: v3.1.0 (latest)
[INF] Current nuclei-templates version: v9.6.9 (latest)
[INF] To view results on cloud dashboard, visit https://cloud.projectdiscovery.io/scans upon scan completion.
[INF] New templates added in latest release: 73
[INF] Templates loaded for current scan: 71
[INF] Executing 71 signed templates from projectdiscovery/nuclei-templates
[INF] Targets loaded for current scan: 1
[INF] Using Interactsh Server: oast.live
[CVE-2017-9506] [http] [medium] http://honey.scanme.sh/plugins/servlet/oauth/users/icon-uri?consumerUri=http://clk37fcdiuf176s376hgjzo3xsoq5bdad.oast.live
[CVE-2019-9978] [http] [medium] http://honey.scanme.sh/wp-admin/admin-post.php?swp_debug=load_options&swp_url=http://clk37fcdiuf176s376hgyk9ppdqe9a83z.oast.live
[CVE-2019-8451] [http] [medium] http://honey.scanme.sh/plugins/servlet/gadgets/makeRequest
[CVE-2015-8813] [http] [high] http://honey.scanme.sh/Umbraco/feedproxy.aspx?url=http://clk37fcdiuf176s376hgj885caqoc713k.oast.live
[CVE-2020-24148] [http] [critical] http://honey.scanme.sh/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=moove_read_xml
[CVE-2020-5775] [http] [medium] http://honey.scanme.sh/external_content/retrieve/oembed?endpoint=http://clk37fcdiuf176s376hgyyxa48ih7jep5.oast.live&url=foo
[CVE-2020-7796] [http] [critical] http://honey.scanme.sh/zimlet/com_zimbra_webex/httpPost.jsp?companyId=http://clk37fcdiuf176s376hgi9b8sd33se5sr.oast.live%23
[CVE-2017-18638] [http] [high] http://honey.scanme.sh/composer/send_email?to=hVsp@XOvw&url=http://clk37fcdiuf176s376hgyf8y81i9oju3e.oast.live
[CVE-2018-15517] [http] [high] http://honey.scanme.sh/index.php/System/MailConnect/host/clk37fcdiuf176s376hgi5j3fsht3dchj.oast.live/port/80/secure/
[CVE-2021-45967] [http] [critical] http://honey.scanme.sh/services/pluginscript/..;/..;/..;/getFavicon?host=clk37fcdiuf176s376hgh1y3xjzb3yjpy.oast.live
[CVE-2021-26855] [http] [critical] http://honey.scanme.sh/owa/auth/x.js
[INF] Scan results uploaded! View them at https://cloud.projectdiscovery.io/scans/clk37krsr14s73afc3ag

After the scan, a URL will be displayed on the command line interface. Visit this URL to check your results on the Cloud Dashboard.

Advanced Integration Options

Setting API key via environment variable Avoid entering your API key via interactive prompt by setting it via environment variable.

export PDCP_API_KEY=XXXX-XXXX

Enabling result upload by default If you want all your scans to automatically upload results to the cloud, enable the ENABLE_CLOUD_UPLOAD environment variable.

export ENABLE_CLOUD_UPLOAD=true

Disabling cloud upload warnings To suppress warnings about result uploads, disable the DISABLE_CLOUD_UPLOAD_WRN environment variable.

export DISABLE_CLOUD_UPLOAD_WRN=true

Your configured PDCP API key stored in $HOME/.pdcp/credentials.yaml

Nuclei OSS results uploaded to the cloud platform are scheduled for automatic cleanup after 30 days, although this duration is subject to change as we gauge user feedback and requirement.

Nuclei Reporting

Nuclei comes with reporting module support with the release of v2.3.0 supporting GitHub, GitLab, and Jira integration, this allows nuclei engine to create automatic tickets on the supported platform based on found results.

Platform	GitHub	GitLab	Jira	Markdown	SARIF	Elasticsearch	Splunk HEC	MongoDB
Support	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔	✔

-rc, -report-config flag can be used to provide a config file to read configuration details of the platform to integrate. Here is an example config file for all supported platforms. For example, to create tickets on GitHub, create a config file with the following content and replace the appropriate values:

# GitHub contains configuration options for GitHub issue tracker

github:
  username: '$user'
  owner: '$user'
  token: '$token'
  project-name: 'testing-project'
  issue-label: 'Nuclei'
  duplicate-issue-check: true

Alternatively if you use GitLab, create a config file following content and replace the appropriate values:

# GitLab contains configuration options for GitLab issue tracker

gitlab:
  username: '$user'
  base-url: 'gitlab.com'
  token: '$token'
  project-name: 'testing-project'
  issue-label: 'nuclei-label'
  severity-as-label: true
  duplicate-issue-check: true

To store results in Elasticsearch, create a config file with the following content and replace the appropriate values:

# elasticsearch contains configuration options for elasticsearch exporter
elasticsearch:
  # IP for elasticsearch instance
  ip: 127.0.0.1
  # Port is the port of elasticsearch instance
  port: 9200
  # IndexName is the name of the elasticsearch index
  index-name: nuclei

To forward results to Splunk HEC, create a config file with the following content and replace the appropriate values:

# splunkhec contains configuration options for splunkhec exporter
splunkhec:
  # Hostname for splunkhec instance
  host: '$hec_host'
  # Port is the port of splunkhec instance
  port: 8088
  # IndexName is the name of the splunkhec index
  index-name: nuclei
  # SSL enables ssl for splunkhec connection
  ssl: true
  # SSLVerification disables SSL verification for splunkhec
  ssl-verification: true
  # HEC Token for the splunkhec instance
  token: '$hec_token'

To forward results to Jira, create a config file with the following content and replace the appropriate values: The Jira reporting options allows for custom fields, as well as using variables from the Nuclei templates in those custom fields. The supported variables currently are: $CVSSMetrics, $CVEID, $CWEID, $Host, $Severity, $CVSSScore, $Name In addition, Jira is strict when it comes to custom field entry. If the field is a dropdown, Jira accepts only the case sensitive specific string and the API call is slightly different. To support this, there are three types of customfields.

name is the dropdown value
id is the ID value of the dropdown
freeform is if the customfield the entry of any value

To avoid duplication, the JQL query run can be slightly modified by the config file. The CLOSED_STATUS can be changed in the Jira template file using the status-not variable. summary ~ TEMPLATE_NAME AND summary ~ HOSTNAME AND status != CLOSED_STATUS

jira:
  # cloud is the boolean which tells if Jira instance is running in the cloud or on-prem version is used
  cloud: true
  # update-existing is the boolean which tells if the existing, opened issue should be updated or new one should be created
  update-existing: false
  # URL is the jira application url
  url: https://localhost/jira
  # account-id is the account-id of the Jira user or username in case of on-prem Jira
  account-id: test-account-id
  # email is the email of the user for Jira instance
  email: test@test.com
  # token is the token for Jira instance or password in case of on-prem Jira
  token: test-token
  #project-name is the name of the project.
  project-name: test-project-name
  #issue-type is the name of the created issue type (case sensitive)
  issue-type: Bug
  # SeverityAsLabel (optional) sends the severity as the label of the created issue
  # User custom fields for Jira Cloud instead
  severity-as-label: true
  # Whatever your final status is that you want to use as a closed ticket - Closed, Done, Remediated, etc
  # When checking for duplicates, the JQL query will filter out status's that match this.
  # If it finds a match _and_ the ticket does have this status, a new one will be created.
  status-not: Closed
  # Customfield supports name, id and freeform. name and id are to be used when the custom field is a dropdown.
  # freeform can be used if the custom field is just a text entry
  # Variables can be used to pull various pieces of data from the finding itself.
  # Supported variables: $CVSSMetrics, $CVEID, $CWEID, $Host, $Severity, $CVSSScore, $Name
  custom_fields:
    customfield_00001:
      name: 'Nuclei'
    customfield_00002:
      freeform: $CVSSMetrics
    customfield_00003:
      freeform: $CVSSScore

To write results to a MongoDB database collection, update the config file with the connection information.

mongodb:
  # the connection string to the MongoDB database
  # (e.g., mongodb://root:example@localhost:27017/nuclei?ssl=false&authSource=admin)
  connection-string: ""
  # the name of the collection to store the issues
  collection-name: ""
  # excludes the Request and Response from the results (helps with filesize)
  omit-raw: false
  # determines the number of results to be kept in memory before writing it to the database or 0 to
  # persist all in memory and write all results at the end (default)
  batch-size: 0

Running nuclei with reporting module:

nuclei -l urls.txt -t cves/ -rc issue-tracker.yaml

Similarly, other platforms can be configured. Reporting module also supports basic filtering and duplicate checks to avoid duplicate ticket creation.

allow-list:
  severity: high,critical

This will ensure to only creating tickets for issues identified with high and critical severity; similarly, deny-list can be used to exclude issues with a specific severity. If you are running periodic scans on the same assets, you might want to consider -rdb, -report-db flag that creates a local copy of the valid findings in the given directory utilized by reporting module to compare and create tickets for unique issues only.

nuclei -l urls.txt -t cves/ -rc issue-tracker.yaml -rdb prod

Markdown Export Nuclei supports markdown export of valid findings with -me, -markdown-export flag, this flag takes directory as input to store markdown formatted reports. Including request/response in the markdown report is optional, and included when -irr, -include-rr flag is used along with -me.

nuclei -l urls.txt -t cves/ -irr -markdown-export reports

SARIF Export Nuclei supports SARIF export of valid findings with -se, -sarif-export flag. This flag takes a file as input to store SARIF formatted report.

nuclei -l urls.txt -t cves/ -sarif-export report.sarif

It is also possible to visualize Nuclei results using SARIF files.

By uploading a SARIF file to SARIF Viewer
By uploading a SARIF file to Github Actions

More info on the SARIF output is documented here.

These are not official viewers of Nuclei and Nuclei has no liability towards any of these options to visualize Nuclei results. These are just some publicly available options to visualize SARIF files.

Scan Metrics

Nuclei expose running scan metrics on a local port 9092 when -metrics flag is used and can be accessed at localhost:9092/metrics, default port to expose scan information is configurable using -metrics-port flag. Here is an example to query metrics while running nuclei as following nuclei -t cves/ -l urls.txt -metrics

curl -s localhost:9092/metrics | jq .

{
  "duration": "0:00:03",
  "errors": "2",
  "hosts": "1",
  "matched": "0",
  "percent": "99",
  "requests": "350",
  "rps": "132",
  "startedAt": "2021-03-27T18:02:18.886745+05:30",
  "templates": "256",
  "total": "352"
}

Passive Scan

Nuclei engine supports passive mode scanning for HTTP based template utilizing file support, with this support we can run HTTP based templates against locally stored HTTP response data collected from any other tool.

nuclei -passive -target http_data

Passive mode support is limited for templates having {{BasedURL}} or {{BasedURL/}} as base path.

Running With Docker

If Nuclei was installed within a Docker container based on the installation instructions, the executable does not have the context of the host machine. This means that the executable will not be able to access local files such as those used for input lists or templates. To resolve this, the container should be run with volumes mapped to the local filesystem to allow access to these files.

Basic Usage

This example runs a Nuclei container against google.com, prints the results to JSON and removes the container once it has completed:

docker run --rm projectdiscovery/nuclei -u google.com -jsonl

Using Volumes

This example runs a Nuclei container against a list of URLs, writes the results to a .jsonl file and removes the container once it has completed.

# This assumes there's a file called `urls.txt` in the current directory
docker run --rm -v ./:/app/ projectdiscovery/nuclei -l /app/urls.txt -jsonl /app/results.jsonl
# The results will be written to `./results.jsonl` on the host machine once the container has completed

​How to Run Nuclei

​Supported Input Formats

​Executing Nuclei Templates

​Executing Template Workflows

​Types of Templates

​Template Filters

​Advanced Filters

​Public Templates

​Template storage and discovery

​Custom Templates

​AI-Powered Template Generation

​Nuclei Flags

​Rate Limits

​Traffic Tagging

​Template Exclusion

​List Template Path

​Scan on internet database

​Nuclei Config

​Template profiles

​Storage locations

​Nuclei Result Dashboard

​Advanced Integration Options

​Nuclei Reporting

​Scan Metrics

​Passive Scan

​Running With Docker

​Basic Usage

​Using Volumes

How to Run Nuclei

Supported Input Formats

Executing Nuclei Templates

Executing Template Workflows

Types of Templates

Template Filters

Advanced Filters

Public Templates

Template storage and discovery

Custom Templates

AI-Powered Template Generation

Nuclei Flags

Rate Limits

Traffic Tagging

Template Exclusion

List Template Path

Scan on internet database

Nuclei Config

Template profiles

Storage locations

Nuclei Result Dashboard

Advanced Integration Options

Nuclei Reporting

Scan Metrics

Passive Scan

Running With Docker

Basic Usage

Using Volumes