qualys-cli

A unified command-line interface for the Qualys Cloud Platform REST APIs — covering VM, PC, Patch Management, ETM, WAS, TotalCloud (TC), Cloud Agent (CA), Container Security (CS), CSAM, Subscription, Asset, and User management. Rich table output, JSON / YAML / JSONL export, automatic retry with backoff, JWT auto-refresh, OS-keyring credential storage, and a clean machine-readable mode for scripting and AI agents.

  ╭─────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
  │  qualys-cli   ·   273 endpoints, one CLI        │
  │  vm · pc · pm · etm · was · tc · ca · cs        │
  │  csam · sub · asset · user · scanauth           │
  ╰─────────────────────────────────────────────────╯

Installation

# Recommended — isolated install
pipx install qualys-cli

# Or into the current environment
pip install qualys-cli

Python 3.11 or newer. Works on macOS, Linux, and Windows.

Quick start

# 1. Configure credentials (interactive — password stored in OS keyring)
qualys-cli configure

# 2. Run any command
qualys-cli vm host list --limit 10
qualys-cli was webapp list
qualys-cli pm job list --format json

Non-interactive setup

qualys-cli configure \
  --url https://qualysapi.qualys.com \
  --username "$QUALYS_USERNAME" \
  --password "$QUALYS_PASSWORD" \
  --output-mode agentic

Credentials resolve in this priority order:

1. QUALYS_URL / QUALYS_USERNAME / QUALYS_PASSWORD / QUALYS_TOKEN env vars
2. OS keyring (per-profile entry)
3. ~/.config/qualys-cli/config.toml

Multiple profiles via --profile <name> or QUALYS_PROFILE. List with qualys-cli profiles.

Output modes

The CLI has two top-level modes that govern the default output style:

Switch the persistent default for a profile:

qualys-cli mode                # show current
qualys-cli mode agentic        # set agentic
qualys-cli mode interactive    # set interactive

Or set per-shell with export QUALYS_OUTPUT_MODE=agentic.

Per-command output flags

These work on every command and override the mode default:

Examples by module

VM (Vulnerability Management)

qualys-cli vm host list --ips 10.0.0.0/24
qualys-cli vm host detection --ips 10.0.0.0/24
qualys-cli vm scan launch --title "Weekly" --ip 10.0.1.0/24 --option-id 12345
qualys-cli vm scan fetch SCAN-REF-123 --output-file results.json

Patch Management (PM)

qualys-cli pm job list --format json
qualys-cli pm job create --name "Critical patches" \
  --patch-ids "12345,67890" --asset-group-ids "AG-1"
qualys-cli pm patch list --severity Critical

Web Application Scanning (WAS)

qualys-cli was webapp list --name "prod"
qualys-cli was webapp get 12345
qualys-cli was scan launch --webapp-id 12345 --name "Nightly WAS"
qualys-cli was finding list --webapp-id 12345 --severity 5
qualys-cli was report download 99999 --output-file was-report.pdf

TotalCloud (TC) — CSPM

qualys-cli tc connector list --provider AWS
qualys-cli tc evaluation list --provider AWS --account-id 123456789012
qualys-cli tc rule list --cloud-type AWS --rule-type simple_alert
qualys-cli tc exception list

Cloud Agent (CA), Container Security (CS), CSAM

qualys-cli ca agent list --status Active
qualys-cli ca actkey create --title "Linux Prod" --modules VM,PC

qualys-cli cs image list --filter "vulns.severity5Count:>0"
qualys-cli cs image get <sha>
qualys-cli cs container list --severity Critical

qualys-cli csam asset list --updated-after 2026-01-01T00:00Z
qualys-cli csam vuln list-easm --filter "vulnerability.cvss=GREATER=7"

Subscription, Asset, User

qualys-cli sub info
qualys-cli sub export --output-file sub-backup.xml
qualys-cli asset ip add --ips 10.0.0.0/24 --tracking-method IP
qualys-cli user create --username jdoe --first-name Jane --last-name Doe \
  --email jane@example.com --user-role scanner

Tip: append --help to any command (e.g. qualys-cli was scan launch --help) for the full flag set.

Bundled documentation

A comprehensive HTML usage reference covering every command ships inside the package. The docs command finds and opens it — no path guessing required, and it works identically for pip and pipx installs:

qualys-cli docs              # open the reference in your default browser
qualys-cli docs --no-open    # just print the file path (and size)
qualys-cli docs --stdout     # write the raw HTML to stdout (pipe it anywhere)

LLM / agent usage

The CLI is built to be safe to drive from a script or an AI agent:

# JSON output (set agentic mode persistently, or use --format json per call)
qualys-cli mode agentic
qualys-cli vm host list | jq '.HOST_LIST_OUTPUT.RESPONSE.HOST_LIST'

# JSON Lines — one record per line, ideal for streaming
qualys-cli pm job list --format jsonl | jq -r '.id'

# Errors emitted as JSON on stderr when stderr is not a TTY
qualys-cli --profile nonexistent vm host list 2>/tmp/err.json
# {"error": "No username for profile 'nonexistent'...", "type": "configuration_error"}

Behaviour contract for agents:

• stdout contains only data (JSON / JSONL / YAML / table text).
• stderr carries status, spinners, and human-readable errors. All decoration is suppressed when stderr is not a TTY.
• Exit code 0 = success, 1 = any error.
• When stderr is not a TTY, errors are emitted as {"error": "...", "type": "..."} JSON.

Authentication

JWT tokens are fetched via POST /auth, cached in config.toml, and auto-refreshed on 401.

License

MIT