ciguard 0.8.3

Static security auditor for CI/CD pipelines — now with a Model Context Protocol server (`pip install 'ciguard[mcp]'`) exposing scan / scan_repo / explain_rule / diff_baseline / list_rules to Claude Desktop / Claude Code / Cursor. Plus .ciguardignore rationale-required suppression, baseline / delta reports, EOL-aware image checks, GitHub Actions CVE lookups across GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, and Jenkins Pipelines. Pre-commit hook + CIGUARD_MCP_DISABLED enterprise gate.

ciguard

Static security auditor for CI/CD pipelines. Scans pipeline configuration files for misconfigurations, supply-chain risks, and compliance gaps. Produces prioritised reports with mappings to ISO 27001, SOC 2, and NIST CSF.

Supported today: GitLab CI (.gitlab-ci.yml) and GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/*.yml) In development: Jenkins (Declarative Pipeline), SARIF output

New to ciguard? USAGE.md is a practical walkthrough — who benefits, five-minute integrations for GitLab CI / GitHub Actions / Docker, organisational policy patterns, and what the audit-grade reports actually contain.

Why

CI/CD pipelines are increasingly the highest-value attack surface in software delivery. Common misconfigurations — hardcoded secrets, unpinned images, unprotected production deployments, privileged runners — are routinely exploited (SolarWinds, Codecov, 3CX). Existing SAST tools scan application code but miss pipeline-level risks. Manual review is slow and inconsistent.

ciguard runs in seconds, produces actionable reports with compliance mapping, and is auditable enough for regulated environments.

Install

pip install ciguard

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/Jo-Jo98/ciguard.git
cd ciguard
pip install -e .

Quick start

# Scan a pipeline (terminal summary)
ciguard scan --input .gitlab-ci.yml

# HTML report
ciguard scan --input .gitlab-ci.yml --output report.html

# JSON report (CI/API consumption)
ciguard scan --input .gitlab-ci.yml --output report.json --format json

# PDF report (audits, executive review)
ciguard scan --input .gitlab-ci.yml --output report.pdf --format pdf

# SARIF report (uploads to GitHub Code Scanning → Security tab)
ciguard scan --input .github/workflows/release.yml --output ciguard.sarif --format sarif

# Apply organisational policies
ciguard scan --input .gitlab-ci.yml --policies policies/ --output report.html

# Scan a GitHub Actions workflow (auto-detected; --platform overrides)
ciguard scan --input .github/workflows/release.yml --output report.html

# AI-enriched executive summary (optional, requires API key)
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-... ciguard scan --input .gitlab-ci.yml --llm --output report.html

Exit codes: 0 clean, 2 critical findings, 1 error.

Features

• Three platforms — GitLab CI (19 rules), GitHub Actions (12 rules covering supply-chain, IAM, runner, deploy-governance, plus advanced GHA-specific risks: pull_request_target misuse, token-theft windows, secrets: inherit to unpinned reusable workflows, bare self-hosted runners), and Jenkins Declarative Pipelines (6 rules: unpinned docker agents, hardcoded secrets, unconstrained agent any, privileged docker args, dangerous shell patterns, dynamic Groovy script {} blocks). Format auto-detected by filename / content sniff / YAML shape; --platform override available.
• 37 deterministic security rules across 6 categories (Pipeline Integrity, Identity & Access, Runner Security, Artifact Handling, Deployment Governance, Supply Chain)
• Policy engine — 17 built-in organisational policies (7 GitLab CI + 6 GitHub Actions + 4 Jenkins) plus custom YAML policies. Each built-in declares the platforms it applies to; the evaluator filters automatically.
• Scanner integrations — Semgrep CE, OpenSSF Scorecard, GitLab native security artifacts (all optional, graceful when unavailable)
• AI enrichment — optional Claude / OpenAI executive summaries and remediation plans
• Four report formats — HTML (dark, self-contained, no CDN), JSON (API-ready), PDF (8 sections, audit-grade), SARIF 2.1.0 (uploads to GitHub Code Scanning → Security tab)
• Web UI — drag-and-drop upload, live results, downloadable reports
• REST API — FastAPI with OpenAPI docs at /api/docs
• Risk scoring — weighted A–F grade with per-category breakdown
• Compliance mapping — ISO 27001, SOC 2, NIST CSF on every finding

Validated against real-world pipelines

ciguard 0.1 has been validated against 17 public GitLab CI files including the GitLab project itself, Inkscape, Wireshark, Meltano, fdroid, BuildStream, and Graphviz. PRD acceptance criteria as of v0.1:

• Recall on labelled bad fixture: 100% (14/14 expected rules fire)
• False positives on labelled good fixture: 0
• Performance: 166 ms mean parse + analyse on a synthetic 500-job pipeline (5-run mean)

Regenerate locally with python scripts/validate_corpus.py and python scripts/validate_fixtures.py.

Custom policies

Create YAML files in a policies/ directory:

# policies/my_org.yml
policies:
  - id: "ORG-001"
    name: "No Critical Findings"
    description: "Zero critical findings required before merge"
    severity: critical
    condition:
      type: no_severity
      severity: Critical
    remediation: "Resolve all Critical findings before merging"
    tags: [org, gate]

Supported condition types: no_rule_findings, max_findings, min_risk_score, no_severity, min_category_score, pipeline_check. See policies/example_org_policies.yml for a full example.

Risk scoring

Weighted score across 6 categories — each contributes a percentage of the overall score:

Category	Weight
Pipeline Integrity	25%
Identity & Access	20%
Deployment Governance	20%
Supply Chain	20%
Runner Security	7.5%
Artifact Handling	7.5%

Grades: A (90–100), B (80–89), C (70–79), D (60–69), F (<60).

MCP server (AI-native integration)

ciguard ships an optional Model Context Protocol server that exposes its scanning capabilities as tools any MCP-compatible AI client (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code MCP extensions) can invoke.

pip install 'ciguard[mcp]'

Five tools are registered:

Tool	Purpose
ciguard.scan	Scan a single pipeline file. Returns the full Report.
ciguard.scan_repo	Walk a directory, discover every pipeline file, scan all. Aggregated severity + per-file summary.
ciguard.explain_rule	Return canonical metadata for a rule (name / severity / remediation / compliance).
ciguard.diff_baseline	Run a scan + compute the v0.5 baseline delta. New / resolved / unchanged + score Δ.
ciguard.list_rules	Enumerate the catalog. Optional platform / severity filters.

Claude Desktop

Add to ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json (macOS) or %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json (Windows):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ciguard": {
      "command": "ciguard",
      "args": ["mcp"]
    }
  }
}

Cursor / VS Code MCP extension

{
  "mcp.servers": {
    "ciguard": { "command": "ciguard", "args": ["mcp"] }
  }
}

Why this matters

Unlocks workflows like "Scan my pipeline and explain the most critical finding" (model chains scan + explain_rule), "Compare current scan against baseline and draft a PR description" (model chains scan + diff_baseline), "Which of my files would benefit from a manual approval gate?" (model calls scan_repo and reasons over the response). ciguard becomes a building block for AI agents, not just a CLI.

Disabling MCP for managed devices (CIGUARD_MCP_DISABLED)

Corporate environments standardising on a centralised MCP gateway can prevent individual devs from running a local ciguard MCP server by setting:

export CIGUARD_MCP_DISABLED=1

When set to 1 / true / yes / on (case-insensitive), ciguard mcp exits with a clear policy message and a non-zero exit code before starting the server. Push via MDM (Jamf / Intune), /etc/environment, Group Policy, or shell profile to enforce fleet-wide. Unset or any other value → MCP runs normally.

Suppressing findings (.ciguardignore)

Drop a .ciguardignore YAML file at your repo root to suppress findings that you've reviewed and accepted. Every entry must include a written reason — naked rule-id-only disables are rejected by design (auditors need to know why).

# .ciguardignore
- rule_id: PIPE-001
  location: deploy_prod          # optional — substring match on the finding location
  reason: We pin to digest in the parent template; this image is intentionally tag-tracked.
  expires: 2026-12-31             # optional — emits a warning when the date passes (still suppresses)

- rule_id: SCA-EOL-003
  reason: Internal mirror keeps Python 3.9 alive past upstream EOL until 2026 Q3.

Suppressed findings still appear in HTML / PDF / JSON / SARIF reports under a dedicated Suppressed section so the audit trail is preserved — they just don't contribute to the risk score or trigger CI failure. Override discovery with --ignore-file <path>; disable entirely with --no-ignore-file.

Pre-commit hook

Install ciguard into your pre-commit chain to scan pipeline files on every commit:

# .pre-commit-config.yaml
repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/Jo-Jo98/ciguard
    rev: v0.7.0
    hooks:
      - id: ciguard

The hook auto-matches .gitlab-ci.yml, .github/workflows/*.yml, Jenkinsfile, and *.groovy. Blocks the commit on Critical / High findings (exit codes 2 / 1).

Running with Docker

# Build
docker compose build

# Web UI on :8080
docker compose up web

# CLI scan
docker compose run --rm cli --input /pipeline/.gitlab-ci.yml --output /reports/report.html

Roadmap

• v0.1 — GitLab CI parser, 19 rules, policy engine, scanner integrations, HTML/JSON/PDF reports, AI enrichment, web UI
• v0.2 — GitHub Actions parser + 7 GHA rules (uses SHA pinning, permissions: write-all, hardcoded env secrets, privileged services, deploy-without-environment, dangerous shell, unpinned containers) + GHA-aware built-in policies (v0.2.1)
• v0.3 — SARIF 2.1.0 output + 5 advanced GHA rules (pull_request_target safety, token-theft detection, secrets: inherit trust, self-hosted runner hygiene, missing permissions: block)
• v0.4 — Jenkins (Declarative Pipeline only)
• v0.5 — Baseline / delta reports, GitHub Actions Marketplace listing

See PRD.md for the full reconciled scope and current task list.

Development

# Run tests
pytest tests/ -v

# Coverage
pytest tests/ --cov=src/ciguard --cov-report=html

# Validate against the public real-world corpus
python scripts/validate_corpus.py

# Validate the labelled fixtures (PRD acceptance criteria 1 & 2)
python scripts/validate_fixtures.py

Contributing

Issues and PRs welcome. Please run the full test suite and the fixture validator (python scripts/validate_fixtures.py) before submitting — both must pass.

License

Apache 2.0 — see LICENSE.