pmd-apex-rules

Overview

Per pmd.github.io - Apex Security Rules:

PMD ships a built-in category/apex/security.xml ruleset that covers 10 security rules for Salesforce Apex. All 10 rules are present since PMD 5.5.3 and carry Medium (3) priority by default. The ruleset addresses the Salesforce-specific threat model: SOQL injection, object/field-level security bypass, sharing-model evasion, hard-coded credentials, insecure endpoints, XSS through Visualforce, and open redirect.

This skill is the Apex-specific companion to semgrep-rules and sonarqube-rules. Those tools cover general multi-language patterns; this one covers the Salesforce Apex security category absent from both. The sast-finding-triager agent in ../../agents/sast-finding-triager.md can unify findings across all five SAST tools.

When to use

• The repo contains Salesforce Apex (.cls, .trigger) and requires SAST gating in CI.
• Regulated-industry teams (financial services, healthcare, government) need documented evidence of permission checks and sharing-mode enforcement.
• The team already runs PMD on Java and wants a consistent runner for Apex.
• Security review asks for SOQL injection, CRUD/FLS bypass, or sharing violation detection.

Step 1 - Install

Per pmd.github.io - Installation, PMD requires Java 8 or later. Download the zip from the GitHub releases page, unzip, and add bin/ to PATH:

# Linux / macOS
unzip pmd-dist-*.zip -d ~/pmd
export PATH="$HOME/pmd/bin:$PATH"

# Verify
pmd --version

For CI, prefer the Docker image or the Maven/Gradle plugin to avoid zip management. The Docker image is available at ghcr.io/pmd/pmd.

Step 2 - First scan with the built-in security ruleset

Per pmd.github.io - CLI Reference:

pmd check -d . -R category/apex/security.xml -f sarif -r pmd-apex.sarif

Flag reference (per pmd-cli):

Exit codes (per pmd-cli):

Step 3 - The 10 Apex security rules

Per pmd.github.io - Apex Security Rules:

ApexSOQLInjection detail

Per pmd-apex-sec: "Detects the usage of untrusted / unescaped variables in DML queries."

Non-compliant:

public class Foo {
    public void test1(String t1) {
        Database.query('SELECT Id FROM Account' + t1);
    }
}

Compliant (bind variable - automatically sanitized by the Apex runtime):

public class Foo {
    public void test1(String accountName) {
        List<Account> accounts = [SELECT Id FROM Account WHERE Name = :accountName];
    }
}

ApexCRUDViolation detail

Per pmd-apex-sec: "The rule validates you are checking for access permissions before a SOQL/SOSL/DML operation." Accepted remediation paths include DescribeSObjectResult system checks, WITH SECURITY_ENFORCED, or (since Winter '23 / API v56) WITH USER_MODE.

The rule is configurable for custom authorization facades via regex properties (createAuthMethodPattern, readAuthMethodPattern, etc.) so teams using an internal ESAPI wrapper can still pass the check per pmd-apex-sec.

ApexSharingViolations detail

Per pmd-apex-sec: "Detect classes declared without explicit sharing mode if DML methods are used." The three accepted keywords are with sharing, without sharing, and inherited sharing. The intent is to force a conscious declaration of sharing posture, not to mandate a specific value.

Step 4 - Custom ruleset (subset or extended)

Per pmd.github.io - Making Rulesets:

Use a custom XML ruleset to select a subset, override priorities, or add exclusion patterns for generated code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<ruleset name="Apex Security - Regulated"
    xmlns="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://pmd.sourceforge.net/ruleset/2.0.0
    https://pmd.sourceforge.io/ruleset_2_0_0.xsd">
  <description>Apex security rules for regulated-industry Apex</description>

  <!-- Include the full security category -->
  <rule ref="category/apex/security.xml">
    <!-- Suppress for auto-generated WSDL stubs -->
    <exclude name="ApexSuggestUsingNamedCred"/>
  </rule>

  <!-- Exclude generated code directories -->
  <exclude-pattern>.*/generated/.*</exclude-pattern>
</ruleset>

Run with the custom ruleset:

pmd check -d force-app/main/default/classes \
          -R config/pmd-apex-regulated.xml \
          -f sarif \
          -r pmd-apex.sarif

Per pmd-rulesets, referencing an entire category means the ruleset automatically picks up new rules added to that category in future PMD versions. Pin specific versions in CI to avoid unexpected gate changes.

Step 5 - Incremental analysis for faster CI

Per pmd-cache (PMD 5.6.0+):

pmd check -d force-app/main/default/classes \
          -R category/apex/security.xml \
          -f sarif \
          -r pmd-apex.sarif \
          --cache .pmd-cache/apex.cache

The cache stores file checksums. Unchanged files reuse cached results; only modified files are re-analyzed. The generated report is identical to a full run (per pmd-cache). Cache is invalidated automatically on PMD version change, ruleset modification, or auxclasspath change.

Step 6 - CI gate (GitHub Actions)

jobs:
  pmd-apex:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Download PMD
        run: |
          PMD_VERSION=7.7.0
          curl -Lo pmd.zip \
            https://github.com/pmd/pmd/releases/download/pmd_releases%2F${PMD_VERSION}/pmd-dist-${PMD_VERSION}-bin.zip
          unzip -q pmd.zip -d pmd-dist
          echo "$PWD/pmd-dist/pmd-bin-${PMD_VERSION}/bin" >> $GITHUB_PATH

      - name: Run PMD Apex security scan
        run: |
          pmd check \
            -d force-app/main/default/classes \
            -R category/apex/security.xml \
            -f sarif \
            -r pmd-apex.sarif \
            --cache .pmd-cache/apex.cache
        # Exit code 4 = violations found (per pmd-cli); gate blocks on non-zero
        continue-on-error: false

      - name: Upload SARIF to GitHub Code Scanning
        uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
        if: always()
        with:
          sarif_file: pmd-apex.sarif
          category: pmd-apex

Per pmd-cli, exit code 4 means violations detected. continue-on-error: false blocks the PR on any finding. Use --minimum-priority 2 to gate only on High and Critical findings while still uploading all findings via SARIF.

Step 7 - Suppression

PMD suppression in Apex (per pmd-apex-sec): annotate the method or class with @SuppressWarnings:

@SuppressWarnings('PMD.ApexCRUDViolation')
public class VisualforceGetter {
    // Visualforce getters auto-enforce FLS; CRUD check is redundant here
    public List<Account> getAccounts() {
        return [SELECT Id, Name FROM Account];
    }
}

Add a comment explaining the justification. Suppressions without rationale are flagged in code review.

Anti-patterns

Limitations

• PMD Apex analysis is syntactic, not data-flow-based; it can miss taint paths that cross method boundaries. For deep interprocedural analysis pair with codeql-queries.
• ApexCRUDViolation generates false positives on Visualforce getter methods where FLS is enforced automatically; suppress with justification per Step 7.
• PMD does not parse Lightning Web Components (.js); client-side XSS is out of scope. Use semgrep-rules with the p/owasp-top-ten ruleset for LWC JavaScript.

References

• pmd-apex-sec - all 10 Apex security rules, properties, examples
• pmd-cli - full CLI reference, flags, exit codes
• pmd-install - installation
• pmd-rulesets - custom ruleset XML format, exclude patterns
• pmd-cache - incremental analysis
• pmd.github.io - Report Formats - all -f format options including sarif
• semgrep-rules - multi-language pattern SAST
• codeql-queries - interprocedural / data-flow SAST
• sonarqube-rules - semantic-DB SAST
• sast-finding-triager - unifier across all SAST tools