Software Bill of Materials (SBOM): Implementation & Best Practices

Last updated on September 21st, 2026 at 08:48 am

Have you forgotten how you can ship code without documenting all the components within it? Those days are gone. I began to take an interest in Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) after completing a project that was flagged as using a library that contains a critical vulnerability- a library that we did not even know we were using. It is not just some compliance checkbox. It’s actually useful.

An SBOM is basically a software ingredients list. It shows you exactly what you have included in your application: libraries, dependencies, versions, and licenses. Think of it like the nutrition label on your food, but with metrics for open-source packages and security risks. And if you are creating anything that involves data, the internet, or goes into production, you need one.

The guide breaks down what SBOMs are, why they matter, which standards work in practice, and how to automate the process without increasing your workload. Whether you’re a developer who needs to keep your pipeline secure or a manager deciding whether this is worth the hassle, here is what you need to know.

What Is an SBOM and Why Does It Matter?

Software bill of materials: An inventory of all the content of a software product formally and in machine-readable form. It enumerates all libraries, frameworks, modules, and dependencies- with their version, their suppliers, and their dependencies. It is not a new concept, though it received media attention after high-profile supply chain attacks such as SolarWinds and Log4Shell.

The point is this: modern applications are not developed on a case-by-case basis. They are made of dozens or hundreds of parts built by third parties. You drag in a library for authentication, a logging library, perhaps a user interface framework, and before long you have code executing that you have never audited. SBOM provides insight into that stack.

Transparency and Visibility

The first one is transparency. An SBOM lets you see the exact decisions and applications used in your environment. A new CVE is released, such as the mayhem with Log4j, and you can query your SBOM and be in the know about whether you are vulnerable in a matter of minutes. Most systems can’t search all repositories and configuration files and still hope you have it all.

We realized this last year during a security audit. The team spent several days trying to monitor which services used a particular version of a Java library. The answer would have been immediate given that we had generated SBOMs per service. It’s worth it for speed and accuracy.

Software Supply Chain Security

Software Supply Chain Security includes SBOMs. The software supply chain includes all the elements, tools, and processes involved in building and delivering software. Malefactors attack not only your code, but also your dependencies, build tools,s and third-party libraries. An SBOM helps you monitor the entire chain and ensure it stays secure.

The U.S. government recognized this. In 2021, Executive Order 14028 mandated that federal agencies purchase software vendor-supplied SBOMs. Other industries followed. If you are selling software to the regulated industries, including healthcare, finance, defense, and so on, you will probably be required to submit SBOMs as a component of the agreement.

SBOM Standards: SPDX, CycloneDX, and NTIA Minimum Elements

SBOMs are not all created equal. They come in several formats, and choosing the wrong one may create compatibility problems in the future. The three major standards are SPDX, CycloneDX, and the NTIA Minimum Elements system.

SPDX (Software Package Data Exchange)

SPDX is the oldest and most popular standard. The Linux Foundation developed it and made it an ISO standard ( ISO/IEC 5962:2021). SPDX’s emphasis on licensing information makes it popular in open-source circles.

An SPDX document includes:

• Package names and versions
• License identifiers (with standardized SPDX license IDs).
• File checksums
• Data of suppliers and originators.
• Interconnections amongst elements.

SPDX supports several formats: tag-value, JSON, YAML, and RDF. In an open-source environment, or when you need to set licensing rules, SPDX is better. I have used it in projects where licensing was very important, and it handled it well.

CycloneDX

OWASP created CycloneDX for security contexts. It is also less hefty than SPDX and more oriented toward vulnerability management. CycloneDX is simpler to work with if your main objective is to track security threats.

CycloneDX supports:

• Minnie, frames, and applications; component inventory (libraries, frameworks, applications)
• CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures), CWE (Common Weakness Enumeration), and GHSA (GitHub Security Advisories).
• APIs, microservices: service definitions.
• Licenses (however, not as detailed as SPDX).

It is available in JSON and XML formats. My experience suggests that security teams prefer CycloneDX because it integrates easily with vulnerability scanners and threat intelligence systems. It is also smaller, which matters when producing SBOMs for hundreds of microservices.

NTIA Minimum Elements

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) developed guidelines on what any SBOM must contain, regardless of format. These minimum elements are:

• Author/supplier of the SBOM
• Component name
• Version of the component
• Unique identifier (e.g., a Package URL or CPE)
• Dependency relationships
• Timestamp of the SBOM

Both SPDX and CycloneDX can meet NTIA requirements. The minimal elements framework focuses less on file format and more on making SBOMs useful. If you are new, have a friend validate your SBOMs using the checklist provided by NTIA before sending them.

Which Standard Should You Use?

Here’s a quick breakdown:

• SPDX: Ideal when it comes to open-source projects, license compliance, as well as wide industry acceptance.
• CycloneDX: Use for security teams, DevSec pipelines, and vulnerability monitoring.
• NTIA Minimum Elements: Use the Minimum Elements Only as a validation checklist, not as a file format.

You can also generate both. Tools can generate multi-format output so that you can use SPDX for licensing and CycloneDX for security. All you need to do is ensure your consumers can read the format you use.

Automated SBOM Generation in CI/CD Pipelines

Creating SBOMs is a time-consuming process. Automation is the only feasible option: build it into your pipeline. Each artifact will result in an SBOM.

Tools for SBOM Generation

You can create SBOMs with several tools. Here are the ones worth using:

Syft (from Anchore): Crawls container files, filesystems, and archives. Outputs SPDX and CycloneDX. It is fast, open-source, and works well in container workflows with Docker. I’ve used Syft in Jenkins pipelines, and it builds SBOMs in a few seconds.

Language-specific CycloneDX CLI: Transformations to CycloneDX SBOMs. It has plugins for Maven, Gradle, npm, pip, and others. In a particular language ecosystem, the native CycloneDX tool usually fits well.

Tern: Produces SBOMs by inspecting container layers. Specifically, it excels at learning what the base images provided and what you incorporated. It’s handy for debugging bulky containers.

Supplier-centric, vendor-neutral, and business-backed tools: This is a fairly recent category of tools utilizing this approach and increasingly supported by major vendors like Microsoft or Facebook, focusing on integrating all these components through a space schematic representation.

Microsoft SBOM Tool: A Microsoft-sponsored open-source tool integrating withAzure DevOps and GitHub Actions. Supports SPDX format. This is an easy choice if you are already in the Microsoft ecosystem.

Integrating SBOM Generation into CI/CD

The trick is to create the SBOM when you create artifacts. Here’s a typical workflow:

1. Create your application: compile code, test, package artifact (container image, JAR, binary, etc.)
2. Run SBOM Generator: Run Syft, CycloneDX CLI, or another tool with the build artifact.
3. Store the SBOM: Store it with your build (e.g., in artifact storage, such as a Docker registry, S3, or Artifactory)
4. Sign the SBOM (not mandatory, but suggested): Use Cosign to cryptographically sign the SBOM with your signature to show your pipeline generated it.

The following is a case of GitHub Actions and Syft:

- name: Build Docker image  run: docker build -t myapp: latest.- name: Generate SBOM  run: syft myapp: latest -o spdx-json > sbom.spdx.json- name: Upload SBOM  uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3  with:    name: sbom    path: sbom.spdx.json

This ensures each release has an SBOM. You can’t rely on someone remembering to run a script manually.

Handling Multi-Language Projects

When your project consists of several languages, e.g., a Python back-end and a JavaScript front-end, you will have to compute SBOMs in each case. Most SBOM tools focus on a single language ecosystem. The remedy is to use a set of tools and combine the outputs.

For example:

• Use npm-sbom as the frontend for Node.js.
• For the Python backend, use a Python plugin with pip-audit or a CycloneDX backend.
• Combine two SBOMs into one document using a tool such as sbom-tool or home-written scripts.

I found that merged SBOMs can become unmanageable when component names conflict or versions clash. Primarily, check the final output before publication.

SBOM Consumption: Vulnerability Tracking and Risk Assessment

Creating SBOMs is only part of the task. Their real value comes from using them to identify vulnerabilities in your software stack, gauge risk, and make informed decisions.

Vulnerability Scanning with SBOMs

You can feed SBOMs into vulnerability scanners. Rather than examining the whole application, the scanner compares the SBOM with a vulnerability databank such as the National Vulnerability Database (NVD), GitHub Advisory Database, or OSV.

Vulnerability scanners that take SBOMs:

• Get All Vulnerability Feeds(from SBOM): Compares SBOM elements with bad feeds.
• Dependency-Track: the open-source SBOM management and analysis system.
• Snyk: Commercial tool that takes SBOMs and gives actionable remediation guidance.
• Trivy: Multipurpose scanner that supports the analysis of SBOMs for CVEs.

The workflow looks like this:

1. Generate SBOM during build.
2. Feed the SBOM to a vulnerability scanner.
3. The sThe scanner identifies components known to have CVEs.
4. Rank according to severity and susceptibility.
5. Repair or change defective, vulnerable parts.

In my experience, SBOM-based scanning is faster than full-stack (conventional) scanning. It doesn’t re-scan the same binaries each time; it only checks the component list against new vulnerability data.

Risk Assessment and Prioritization

Not all vulnerable points are dangerous. With the help of an SBOM, you can evaluate risk by revealing:

• What are the internet-facing components?
• Which are transitive (pulled in by another one) dependencies?
• What libraries are used and what ones are not being used?

For example, if your SBOM shows you are using an old logging library invoked only during startup, it may be low risk. However, if that same library is included in your authentication process and has a remote code execution vulnerability, it becomes critical.

You can configure SBOM-based risk policies with tools such as Dependency-Track. You can label components containing high-severity CVEs, halt deployments in case of identified critical vulnerabilities, or receive notifications in case new vulnerabilities are detected in your stack.

Tracking Component Freshness

SBOMs also help track dependency freshness. When you run packages published in 2018, you likely haven’t received security patches, bug fixes, or performance enhancements. SBOMs make it easier to identify outdated components and organize updates.

Other teams use thresholds: if a component is more than two years old,d it is flagged for review. Others use SBOM diff tools to calculate changes between releases and see what changed in between.

Continuous Monitoring

SBOMs allow constant monitoring. You no longer need to run security scans once a quarter; you can check your SBOMs daily. New CVEs are added regularly. Provided that the SBOM is current and is interconnected with a monitoring platform, you will be notified within a few hours of whether your software is susceptible to a new vulnerability.

This is where the shift from static to dynamic security happens. You are not only performing one check when bargaining the release of a product–you are monitoring risk throughout the lifecycle.

Common Challenges and How to Handle Them

Implementing SBOMs is not necessarily easy. These are the points I have observed and how to address them.

Incomplete or Inaccurate SBOMs

Automated tools do not always catch everything. They may not capture dynamically loaded libraries, vendor-specific code, or custom code. Manual checks and validation are the solution. Once generated, compare and spot-check the SBOM against your actual dependencies. If a tool is missing something, open a bug with the tool maintainer or report it.

SBOM Overload

Thousands of components may make up a big application. The SBOM gets overwhelming. To cope, focus on direct dependencies. Dependencies (of dependencies) matter less unless your SBOM management system supports vulnerability filtering and feature classification.

Format Compatibility

Some tools don’t support every format. Your tooling may only produce CycloneDX whereas a vendor may need SPDX. Conversion tools such as sbom-utility exist, but they are not flawless. You can adjust your generators to output the format you’ll likely need.

Keeping SBOMs Updated

SBOMs go stale fast. If you update a library but don’t regenerate the SBOM, your data becomes incorrect. The fix is automation. Integrate SBOM creation with each build, deployment, release, etc. Unless it becomes automated, it will not stay up to date.

Best Practices of SBOM Implementation.

The following works depending on how it is used in reality:

Automate immediately: You won’t have time to automate it later. Add SBOMs to CI/CD.

Archive SBOMs: Archive the SBOM and the thing that it describes. If you deploy a container, the SBOM must be in the same registry.

Sign your SBOMs: Sign SBOMs with tools such as Sigstore or Cosign. This shows they haven’t been tampered with.

Disseminate SBOMs to stakeholders: As a vendor, give customers SBOMs. As a customer, ask your suppliers for them.

Monitor constantly: Don’t treat SBOMs as static documents. Add them to surveillance systems and monitor vulnerabilities over time.

Create both SPDX and CycloneDX where necessary: Create both formats when you have dissimilar consumers with dissimilar needs.

Check your SBOMs against NTIA minimum elements: Are your SBOMs really useful?

Getting Started with SBOM Implementation

Assuming you are beginning with nothing, the road map to follow is actually an easy one:

1. Select a tool: Most often, this is with Syft if youf you work with containers, or CycloneDX/CycloneDX CLI for language-specific projects.
2. Make one SBOM by hand: Run the tool on a small project and examine the results.
3. CI/CD: Add it to your build pipeline to generate SBOMs.
4. Store and version SBOMs: Store them like any other build artifact.
5. Install vulnerability scanning: Grype, Trivy, or Dependency-Track can scan your SBOMs.
6. Monitor and iterate: Observe what works, close gaps, and improve coverage.

The first SBOM takes effort. The hundredth arrives just as a matter of course.

External Resources for Continuing Learning.

To adopt official SBOM standards and specifications, see the SPDX project documentation maintained by the Linux Foundation. It includes everything, from file formats to tooling.

To implement a security-oriented model, the OWASP CycloneDX project provides an extensive guide to vulnerability monitoring and risk measurement using SBOMs.

Wrapping Up

SBOMs aren’t going away. Regulations are getting stricter, the supply chain is being hit with attacks, and customers are demanding transparency. Whether you are developing software or purchasing it, you will need to manage SBOMs at some point.

The upside is that it’s easy to implement once automated. Choose a standard (SPDX or CycloneDX), add a tool to your pipeline, and start producing SBOMs with each build. Then feed the SBOMs to vulnerability scanners and monitoring platforms to utilize the data.

It’s not magic, but it works. And the next time a major CVE hits, you’ll know exactly where you stand.

Pranay Sai Aduvala

I’m a technology writer passionate about AI and digital marketing. I create engaging and useful content that bridges the gap between complex technology concepts and digital technologies. My writing makes the process easy and engaging. I encourage participation I continue to research innovation and technology. Let’s connect and talk technology!