octorules-cloudflare 0.6.2

Cloudflare provider for octorules

octorules-cloudflare

Cloudflare provider for octorules — manages 23 Cloudflare rule phases, custom rulesets, lists, and Page Shield policies as YAML.

Installation

pip install octorules-cloudflare

Or via the octorules extra:

pip install octorules[cloudflare]

This installs octorules (core), octorules-cloudflare, and octorules-wirefilter (Rust FFI bridge to Cloudflare's wirefilter engine for authoritative expression parsing and full linter coverage).

Prebuilt wirefilter wheels are available for Linux (x86_64, aarch64; glibc and musl/Alpine), macOS (x86_64, ARM64), and Windows (x86_64).

Configuration

providers:
  cloudflare:
    token: env/CLOUDFLARE_API_TOKEN
  rules:
    directory: ./rules

zones:
  example.com:
    sources:
      - rules

The env/ prefix resolves values from environment variables at runtime. All keys under the provider section are forwarded to the provider constructor as keyword arguments (octodns-style passthrough).

Authentication

A Cloudflare API token is required. The token needs the following permissions:

• Zone > Firewall Services > Edit — for ruleset phase operations
• Account > Account Rulesets > Edit — for account-level rules and custom rulesets
• Account > Account Filter Lists > Edit — for list management
• Zone > Page Shield > Edit — for Page Shield policy management

Provider settings

All settings below go under the provider section (e.g. providers.cloudflare).

Key	Default	Description
token	(required)	Cloudflare API token (env/ prefix supported)
max_retries	2	API retry count (0-10)
timeout	30	API timeout in seconds (max 300)

Safety thresholds are configured under safety: (framework-owned, not forwarded to the provider):

Key	Default	Description
safety.delete_threshold	30.0	Max % of rules that can be deleted
safety.update_threshold	30.0	Max % of rules that can be updated
safety.min_existing	3	Min rules before thresholds apply

Supported features

Feature	Status
Phase rules (23 phases)	Supported
Custom rulesets (account-level)	Supported
Lists (IP, ASN, hostname, redirect)	Supported
Page Shield policies (zone-level)	Supported
Zone discovery (list_zones)	Supported
Account-level scopes	Supported
Audit IP extraction (octorules audit)	Supported

Supported phases

23 Cloudflare phases — 18 HTTP request/response phases and 5 network-level (Magic Transit) phases. Phases execute in a fixed order:

Request  -> url_normalization -> redirect_rules -> url_rewrite_rules -> request_header_rules
         -> origin_rules -> config_rules -> cache_rules
         -> waf_custom_rules -> waf_managed_rules -> rate_limiting_rules
         -> bot_fight_rules -> http_ddos_rules
         ->  Origin fetch  <-
         -> custom_error_rules -> response_header_rules -> compression_rules
         -> sensitive_data_detection -> log_custom_fields -> Response

Phases with a default action (e.g., redirect_rules -> redirect) don't need action in the YAML — it's injected automatically. For phases without a default (e.g., waf_custom_rules), you must specify action explicitly.

Phases marked as both Zone and Account work at either scope. Account-only phases are skipped for zone scopes and vice versa, eliminating wasted API calls.

For the full phase reference — execution order diagram, valid actions per phase, field/function availability, and key behaviors — see docs/lint/README.md.

Note: waf_managed_exceptions was renamed to waf_managed_rules. The old name still works as an alias but is deprecated — update your YAML files to use the new name.

Expression syntax

Rule expressions use Cloudflare's ruleset expression language. When octorules-wirefilter is installed (included automatically with octorules-cloudflare), expressions are parsed by Cloudflare's actual wirefilter engine, providing authoritative type checking, field validation, and syntax verification. Without it, a regex-based fallback parser extracts fields, functions, operators, and literals but cannot perform type checking.

The linter logs which parser is active at startup (Expression parser: wirefilter or Expression parser: regex fallback).

Rule-level metadata: All Cloudflare rules support the octorules: key for per-rule metadata — ignored: true to skip a rule during plan/sync, and included/excluded to restrict rules to specific providers. See octorules core docs for syntax and examples.

Custom rulesets (account-level)

At the account level, WAF custom rules and rate limiting rules use a two-tier structure: the phase entrypoint contains deploy rules (action: execute) that reference child custom rulesets by ID. The individual blocking/logging rules live inside those child rulesets.

octorules manages both tiers. Deploy rules are managed via the normal phase sections (waf_custom_rules, rate_limiting_rules). The individual rules inside each custom ruleset are managed via a separate custom_rulesets section:

# Account rules file (e.g. rules/my-account.yaml)

# Deploy rules (phase entrypoint — references child rulesets by ID)
waf_custom_rules:
  - ref: deploy-known-attackers
    description: Deploy known attackers ruleset
    action: execute
    action_parameters:
      id: abc12345def67890abc12345def67890
      version: latest
    enabled: true
    expression: (http.host eq "api.example.com")

# Individual rules inside each custom ruleset
custom_rulesets:
  - id: abc12345def67890abc12345def67890
    name: Known attackers
    phase: http_request_firewall_custom
    rules:
      - ref: block-bad-asn
        description: Block by AS number
        action: block
        expression: (ip.geoip.asnum in {12345 67890})
      - ref: block-bad-ua
        description: Block by user-agent
        action: block
        expression: (http.user_agent contains "BadBot")

The id field in each custom_rulesets entry links it to the deploy rule's action_parameters.id. Rules inside use ref for identification (same pattern as phase rules). Every rule must specify an action explicitly.

Use octorules dump --scope account to export existing custom rulesets to YAML.

Note: octorules manages rules within existing custom rulesets. Creating or deleting rulesets themselves must be done via the Cloudflare dashboard. Zone-level rulesets do not have kind=custom children — this is account-level only.

Lists (account-level)

Cloudflare account-level Lists (IP lists, ASN lists, hostname lists, redirect lists) can be referenced in rule expressions via $list_name syntax. octorules manages full lifecycle of lists declaratively: create, delete, update metadata, and manage items.

Add a top-level lists key to your account rules file:

# rules/my-account.yaml
lists:
  - name: blocked_ips
    kind: ip
    description: "Known bad IPs"
    items:
      - ip: "1.2.3.4"
        comment: "Scanner"
      - ip: "5.6.7.0/24"
        comment: "Botnet range"

  - name: partner_asns
    kind: asn
    description: "Partner AS numbers"
    items:
      - asn: 12345
        comment: "Partner A"
      - asn: 67890
        comment: "Partner B"

Each list entry requires:

Field	Description
name	List name — matches CF list name and $list_name in expressions
kind	One of ip, asn, hostname, redirect
description	Optional — updated if changed
items	List of items (can be empty [] to clear all items)

How it works:

• The presence of a lists: key means ALL lists are managed — lists in Cloudflare not in YAML are planned for deletion (subject to safety thresholds).
• If the lists: key is absent, lists are ignored entirely.
• Item updates are asynchronous — octorules polls the bulk operation until completion.
• During sync, lists are applied before rulesets and phases, so newly created lists are available for rule expressions that reference them.
• Use octorules dump --scope account to export existing lists to YAML. The dump externalizes list items into separate files (referenced via !include tags) under providers.lists.directory (default: {rules_dir}/custom_lists).

Reference lists in rule expressions:

waf_custom_rules:
  - ref: block-bad-ips
    description: Block IPs from blocklist
    action: block
    expression: (ip.src in $blocked_ips)

Page Shield policies (zone-level)

Cloudflare Page Shield manages Content Security Policies (CSP) at the zone level. octorules manages full lifecycle of Page Shield policies declaratively: create, update, and delete.

Add a top-level page_shield_policies key to your zone rules file:

# rules/example.com.yaml
page_shield_policies:
  - description: "CSP on all example.com"
    action: allow
    expression: "true"
    enabled: true
    value: >-
      script-src 'self' 'unsafe-inline' 'unsafe-eval' https:;
      worker-src 'self' blob:

  - description: "Log CSP on staging"
    action: log
    expression: '(http.host eq "staging.example.com")'
    enabled: true
    value: "default-src 'self'"

Each policy entry requires:

Field	Description
description	Policy description — used as the identity key for matching
action	allow or log
expression	Cloudflare filter expression
enabled	Boolean
value	CSP directive string

How it works:

• The description field is the identity key (like ref for rules and name for lists). Policies are matched between YAML and Cloudflare by description.
• The presence of a page_shield_policies: key means ALL policies are managed — policies in Cloudflare not in YAML are planned for deletion.
• If the page_shield_policies: key is absent, policies are ignored entirely.
• During sync, policies are applied after lists and before custom rulesets and phases.
• Use octorules dump to export existing Page Shield policies to YAML.

CSP source normalization: The order of sources within a CSP directive is not significant — script-src 'self' example.com and script-src example.com 'self' are semantically identical. octorules normalizes source order (sorted alphabetically within each directive) before comparing value fields, so reordering sources in your YAML will not trigger an upstream change on Cloudflare. You can freely reorganize sources for readability without causing a sync.

Linting

127 Cloudflare-specific lint rules (CF prefix) across 6 ranges:

Range	Category	Rules
CF001–CF026	Structure & parse	26
CF100–CF104	Cross-rule ordering	5
CF200–CF219	Action validation	20
CF300–CF309	Expression, function & type	10
CF400–CF476	Domain-specific (rate limit, cache, config, redirect, transform, origin, page shield, list)	41
CF500–CF545	Plan limits, style & value constraints	35

See docs/lint/README.md for the full rule reference.

Development

git clone [e-mail]:doctena-org/octorules-cloudflare.git
cd octorules-cloudflare
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev]"
ln -sf ../../scripts/hooks/pre-commit .git/hooks/pre-commit

The pre-commit hook auto-regenerates schemas.json (the frozen schema fallback for users without wirefilter) whenever overlay.toml or pyproject.toml changes. See docs/schemas.md for the full schema architecture.

License

Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE.