Chart Your First Survey

Ready to navigate complexity into clarity? Get up and running with Spice Labs in under 5 minutes! This guide will walk you through the essential steps to perform your first software analysis.

Prerequisites

Step 1: Begin Your Journey

  1. Start your free trial at spicelabs.io/get-started or contact our team at spicelabs.io to establish your account
  2. Navigate to the dashboard at https://dashboard.spicelabs.io
  3. Log in with your provided credentials
  4. A sample project with sample data will be pre-configured for you

Step 2: Get Your Spice Pass

Your Spice Pass is the JWT token that authenticates your CLI requests:

  1. In the dashboard, navigate to your project settings
  2. Click “Get your Spice Pass”
  3. Copy or download the Spice Pass JWT token
  4. Save it somewhere secure (you’ll need it for the CLI and API)

Step 3: Install the CLI

Choose your platform:

macOS/Linux

curl -sSLf https://install.spicelabs.io | bash

Windows PowerShell

irm -UseBasicParsing -Uri https://install.spicelabs.io | iex

The installer will:

  • Download the latest Spice Labs Surveyor CLI
  • Give you instructions to add it to your system PATH
  • Verify the installation

Step 4: Set Your Spice Pass

Set your Spice Pass as an environment variable:

macOS/Linux

export SPICE_PASS="your-jwt-token-here"

Windows PowerShell

$env:SPICE_PASS="your-jwt-token-here"

Step 5: Run Your First Survey

Ready to see it in action? Choose your approach:

# Clone our sample project
git clone https://github.com/spice-labs-inc/sample_project.git
cd sample_project

# Run your first survey
spice --tag=sample_project

Option B: Survey Your Own Project

# Navigate to your project directory
cd /path/to/your/project

# Chart your software landscape
spice --tag=your-project-or-module-name

The --tag value is required and groups surveys of the same system over time. Use a consistent name across runs to track how your project changes.

The CLI will:

  1. Survey your software artifacts and generate encrypted Artifact Dependency Graphs (ADGs)
  2. Upload the encrypted ADGs to Spice Labs

Step 6: View Results

  1. Return to the Spice Labs dashboard
  2. Navigate to your project
  3. Reload the page
  4. You should see your survey results in the surveys list, including:
  • Discovered packages and dependencies
  • Vulnerability information

What’s Next?

Now that you’ve completed your first survey, explore these next steps:

Common Issues

“Command not found: spice”

  • Restart your terminal after installation
  • Make sure the installer completed successfully
  • Check that the path printed by the installer is in your PATH

“Authentication failed”

  • Verify your SPICE_PASS environment variable is set correctly
  • Check that your Spice Pass hasn’t expired in the dashboard
  • Ensure there are no extra spaces in your token

“No files found to survey”

  • Make sure you’re in the correct directory
  • Check that your input path exists and contains files
  • Verify file permissions allow the CLI to read them

Get Help

💡 Success!

You’ve successfully completed your first Spice Labs survey. The more you chart, the deeper your insights into your software landscape become.

ℹ️ What did we survey?

The Surveyor CLI analyzed your software artifacts to generate encrypted Artifact Dependency Graphs (ADGs), then securely uploaded them to your private Spice Labs environment.