Dependabot alerts help you find and fix vulnerable dependencies before they become security risks.
Software often relies on packages from various sources, creating dependency relationships that can unknowingly introduce security vulnerabilities. When your code depends on packages with known security vulnerabilities, you become a target for attackers seeking to exploit your system—potentially gaining access to your code, data, customers, or contributors. Dependabot alerts notify you about vulnerable dependencies so you can upgrade to secure versions and protect your project.
Dependabot scans your repository's default branch and sends alerts when:
For supported ecosystems, see Dependency graph supported package ecosystems.
When GitHub detects a vulnerable dependency, a Dependabot alert appears on the repository's Security and quality tab and dependency graph. Each alert includes:
For information about viewing and managing alerts, see Viewing and updating Dependabot alerts.
Repository administrators and organization owners can enable Dependabot alerts for their repositories and organizations. When enabled, GitHub immediately generates the dependency graph and creates alerts for any vulnerable dependencies it identifies. Repository administrators can grant access to additional people or teams.
See Configuring Dependabot alerts.
Users with write access or higher can assign Dependabot alerts to repository collaborators, teams, or AI agents to establish clear ownership for vulnerability remediation. Assignments help track who's responsible for each alert and prevent vulnerabilities from being overlooked.
You can assign alerts to the following types of agents:
When an alert is assigned to a person or team, the assignee receives a notification and the alert displays their name in the alert list. You can filter alerts by assignee to track progress.
When an alert is assigned to an agent, the agent automatically creates a session and opens a draft pull request with a proposed fix. If the agent can't generate a fix, it remains as an assignee, and you can click View Session on the alert timeline to review the agent's log.
Note
Assignment visibility is currently scoped to the repository-level alerts view. The organization-wide security overview does not display alert assignments.
When an alert's assignees change, GitHub sends an assignees_changed webhook event. You can use this event to trigger workflows or sync assignment data with external systems. For more information, see Webhook events and payloads.
You can manage alert assignments programmatically using the REST API. For more information, see REST API endpoints for Dependabot alerts.
For information about assigning alerts, see Viewing and updating Dependabot alerts.
By default, GitHub sends email notifications about new alerts to people who both:
You can override the default behavior by choosing the type of notifications you want to receive, or switching notifications off altogether in the settings page for your user notifications at https://github.com/settings/notifications.
Regardless of your notification preferences, when Dependabot is first enabled, GitHub does not send notifications for all vulnerable dependencies found in your repository. Instead, you will receive notifications for new vulnerable dependencies identified after Dependabot is enabled, if your notification preferences allow it.
If you are concerned about receiving too many notifications, we recommend leveraging Dependabot auto-triage rules to auto-dismiss low-risk alerts. Rules are applied before alert notifications are sent, so alerts that are auto-dismissed upon creation do not send notifications. See Dependabot auto-triage rules.
Alternatively, you can opt into the weekly email digest, or even completely turn off notifications while keeping Dependabot alerts enabled.
Dependabot alerts have some limitations:
GitHub never publicly discloses vulnerabilities for any repository.