# The `check` command

The check command is the primary subcommand of cargo-deny as it is what actually runs through all of the crates in your project and checks them against your configuration.

## Args

### `<which>`

The check(s) to perform. By default, **all** checks will be performed, unless one or more checks are specified here.

See [checks](../checks/index.html) for the list of available checks.

## Options

### `-A, --allow <ALLOW>`

Set lint allowed

### `--audit-compatible-output`

To ease transition from cargo-audit to cargo-deny, this flag will tell cargo-deny to output the exact same output as cargo-audit would, to `stdout` instead of `stderr`, just as with cargo-audit.

Note that this flag only applies when the output format is JSON, and note that since cargo-deny supports multiple advisory databases, instead of a single JSON object, there will be 1 for each unique advisory database.

### `-c, --config <CONFIG>`

Path to the config to use

Defaults to `<cwd>/deny.toml` if not specified

### `-d, --disable-fetch`

Disable fetching of the advisory database

When running the `advisories` check, the configured advisory database will be fetched and opened. If this flag is passed, the database won't be fetched, but an error will occur if it doesn't already exist locally.

This option is also set if the `--offline` flag is used in the global options.

### `--exclude-dev`

If set to `true`, all `dev-dependencies`, even one for workspace crates, are not included in the crate graph used for any of the checks.

### `-D, --deny <DENY>`

Set lint denied

### `--feature-depth <FEATURE_DEPTH>`

Specifies the depth at which feature edges are added in inclusion graphs

### `-g, --graph <GRAPH>`

Path to graph_output root directory

If set, a dotviz graph will be created for whenever multiple versions of the same crate are detected.

Each file will be created at `<dir>/graph_output/<crate_name>.dot`. `<dir>/graph_output/*` is deleted and recreated each run.

### `--hide-inclusion-graph`

Hides the inclusion graph when printing out info for a crate

By default, if a diagnostic message pertains to a specific crate, cargo-deny will append an inverse dependency graph to the diagnostic to show you how that crate was pulled into your project.

```text
some diagnostic message

the-crate
├── a-crate
└── b-crate
    └── c-crate
```

### `-s, --show-stats`

Show stats for all the checks, regardless of the log-level

### `-W, --warn <WARN>`

Set lint warnings

## Exit Codes

As of [0.14.1](https://github.com/EmbarkStudios/cargo-deny/releases/tag/0.14.1), the exit code for the check command is a bitset of the checks that were executed and had 1 or more errors.

A script or program can use the following values to determine exactly which check(s) failed.

* `advisories` - `0x1`
* `bans` - `0x2`
* `licenses` - `0x4`
* `sources` - `0x8`