What is SAST?
Static Application Security Testing inspects code or interface contracts without executing them. For APIs, that means reading the OpenAPI or GraphQL schema to spot weaknesses in authentication, authorization, data exposure, and error handling before an endpoint ever receives traffic. Unlike dynamic scanning, SAST runs early in the lifecycle, is deterministic, and produces findings developers can fix while context is fresh.
Traditional SAST engines were built for source code and often miss API-specific design risks. APISAST tailors static analysis to the contract itself—security schemes, scopes, response shapes, pagination, and versioning—so platform teams get API-native coverage without instrumenting staging environments.
Why use SAST for API security?
API incidents often originate from design-level gaps: missing auth on a “read-only” endpoint, insufficient pagination controls that enable scraping, or verbose 500 errors that reveal stack traces. API SAST exposes these risks from the single source of truth—the specification—so teams can remediate before testers or attackers ever send a request.
- •Shift security left into design reviews and pull requests.
- •Zero-traffic testing keeps PII and regulated data safe.
- •Consistent rule coverage across every service and version.
- •Clear mapping to the OWASP API Security Top 10 for auditability.
APISAST approach to SAST
APISAST ingests JSON or YAML OpenAPI files and runs 29+ rules grouped into authentication, authorization, input validation, error handling, documentation quality, versioning, and performance. Findings are ordered by severity with remediation text developers can paste into their specs.
Security-first rules
Checks for missing auth, unscoped tokens, insecure HTTP, sensitive fields in responses, and misaligned OAuth flows.
Quality + compliance
Validates RFC 7807 error bodies, pagination headers, versioning strategy, and description completeness so APIs stay consistent.
Explore the OpenAPI security scanner for a deeper look at how specification parsing works.
SAST vs DAST vs Fuzzing
SAST
- • Runs on specs or code with no traffic
- • Great for early-stage design and CI
- • Finds missing auth, error handling, docs gaps
DAST
- • Exercises live endpoints
- • Good at runtime issues (CORS, rate limits)
- • Requires stable staging data
Fuzzing
- • Throws unexpected payloads at running APIs
- • Catches serialization and parsing flaws
- • Complements SAST; later in pipeline
Most teams run SAST on every pull request, DAST on staging, and fuzzing on pre-prod. APISAST focuses on the SAST layer and links out to dynamic checks when specs suggest risky runtime behavior.
Need a runtime view? The API security scanner page compares static and dynamic scanning in depth.
Getting started with APISAST SAST tools
- Upload or point to the OpenAPI file. We support JSON/YAML up to 10 MB and detect versioning automatically.
- Choose the rule profile (standard or comprehensive) depending on risk tolerance.
- Review findings ranked by severity with code-level remediation tips.
- Share or export the report. Each issue links back to the spec line for quick fixes.
- Automate in CI/CD using the same ruleset to block risky changes before merge.
Structured data & governance
APISAST outputs machine-readable reports you can plug into governance dashboards. Each finding includes a rule ID, severity, and OWASP category so platform and compliance teams have a consistent evidence trail.
For architectural overviews, see the static API security scanner or dive into OpenAPI-specific scanning.