exploring-data-flow-with-path-queries.md

title	Exploring data flow with path queries
shortTitle	Explore data flow
versions	fpt ghec ghes * * *
intro	Detect potential vulnerabilities by running path queries and analyzing your data flow.
redirect_from	/code-security/codeql-for-vs-code/exploring-data-flow-with-path-queries /code-security/codeql-for-vs-code/getting-started-with-codeql-for-vs-code/exploring-data-flow-with-path-queries /code-security/how-tos/scan-code-for-vulnerabilities/scan-from-vs-code/exploring-data-flow-with-path-queries
contentType	how-tos
category	Customize vulnerability detection with CodeQL

Prerequisites

Before you can effectively use path queries, you should understand the basics of data flow analysis. See About data flow analysis in the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} documentation.

Running path queries in {% data variables.product.prodname_vscode_shortname %} locally

1. Open a path query in {% data variables.product.prodname_vscode_shortname %}. A path query is a {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} query with the property @kind path-problem.
2. Right-click in the window with the query open, then select {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %}: Run Query on Selected Database. Alternatively, you can also run this from the {% data variables.product.prodname_vscode_command_palette_shortname %}.
3. Once the query has finished running, you can see the results in the "Results" view (under alerts in the dropdown menu). Each query result describes the flow of information between a source and a sink.
4. Expand the result to see the individual steps that the data follows.
5. Click each step to jump to it in the source code and investigate the problem further.

Next steps

{% ifversion codeql-vs-code-mrva %}

You can use the "Variant Analysis Repositories" view to run a query against up to 1,000 repositories on {% data variables.product.prodname_dotcom_the_website %}. See AUTOTITLE.

{% endif %}

To start writing your own path queries, see Creating path queries in the {% data variables.product.prodname_codeql %} documentation.