pipeline-check 0.4.2

CI/CD Security Posture Scanner — scores AWS, Terraform, CloudFormation, GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, Azure DevOps, Bitbucket Pipelines, Jenkins, CircleCI, Google Cloud Build, Dockerfile, Kubernetes manifests, and Helm charts against OWASP Top 10 CI/CD Risks

Pipeline-Check

Find security risks in your CI/CD pipelines before attackers do.

Scans CI/CD configurations against the OWASP Top 10 CI/CD Security Risks and twelve other compliance frameworks. Scores findings A through D so you can gate merges on the result.

450+ checks across 16 providers, mapped to 13 compliance standards, with 100 autofixers, plus 14 attack chains correlating findings into MITRE ATT&CK-mapped kill chains.

Quick start | Usage guide | Providers | How it works | CI integration | Compliance | Docs

---

Quick start

pip install pipeline-check          # Python >= 3.10

pipeline_check                      # auto-detects the provider from cwd
pipeline_check init                 # scaffold .pipeline-check.yml
pipeline_check -p github -o json    # short flags work too
pipeline_check --pipeline aws       # force the live-AWS scan

Run pipeline_check with no flags in any supported repo — it inspects the working directory (.github/workflows/, .gitlab-ci.yml, Jenkinsfile, cloudbuild.yaml, Chart.yaml, template.yml, …), picks the matching provider, and falls back to aws when nothing recognizable is found.

No API tokens required. CI configs are parsed from disk; AWS uses the standard boto3 credential chain. The GitHub Actions provider can optionally follow remote reusable-workflow refs over HTTPS via --resolve-remote (off by default; see docs/providers/github.md for the full opt-in surface).

PR review comments

Pipe findings into pull-request review comments on the changed lines via the bundled composite action:

on: pull_request
permissions:
  contents: read
  pull-requests: write
jobs:
  scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - uses: dmartinochoa/pipeline-check/.github/actions/pipeline-check-pr@v1
        with:
          severity-threshold: MEDIUM

Each finding lands as a review comment on its precise line (when the rule emits a Location); everything else goes into a single PR-level summary comment. See .github/actions/pipeline-check-pr/README.md for inputs, idempotency, and fork-PR fallback behavior.

---

Supported providers

Provider	Input	Auto-detect	Checks
AWS	Live account via boto3	--region	71 checks (CodeBuild, CodePipeline, CodeDeploy, ECR, IAM, PBAC, S3, CloudTrail, CloudWatch Logs, Secrets Manager, CodeArtifact, CodeCommit, Lambda, KMS, SSM, EventBridge, Signer)
Terraform	terraform show -json plan	--tf-plan	AWS-parity shift-left checks, pre-provisioning
CloudFormation	YAML or JSON template	--cfn-template	~63 AWS-parity shift-left checks; handles !Ref/!Sub/!GetAtt intrinsics (treats unresolved values as strict)
GitHub Actions	.github/workflows/*.yml	--gha-path	36 checks (GHA-001--036)
GitLab CI	.gitlab-ci.yml	--gitlab-path	32 checks (GL-001--032)
Bitbucket Pipelines	bitbucket-pipelines.yml	--bitbucket-path	29 checks (BB-001--029)
Azure DevOps	azure-pipelines.yml	--azure-path	30 checks (ADO-001--030)
Jenkins	Jenkinsfile (Declarative/Scripted)	--jenkinsfile-path	32 checks (JF-001--032)
CircleCI	.circleci/config.yml	--circleci-path	31 checks (CC-001--031)
Google Cloud Build	cloudbuild.yaml	--cloudbuild-path	22 checks (GCB-001--022)
Buildkite	.buildkite/pipeline.yml	--buildkite-path	8 checks (BK-001--008)
Tekton	Task / Pipeline / *Run YAML	--tekton-path	8 checks (TKN-001--008)
Argo Workflows	Workflow / WorkflowTemplate YAML	--argo-path	8 checks (ARGO-001--008)
Dockerfile	Dockerfile / Containerfile	--dockerfile-path	20 checks (DF-001--020)
Kubernetes	Manifest YAML (Deployment, Pod, …)	--k8s-path	30 checks (K8S-001--030)
Helm	Chart directory (Chart.yaml) or .tgz	--helm-path	Renders via helm template, runs the 30 K8S-* rules on the result. Requires helm (Helm 3) on PATH.

Each CI provider checks for: dependency pinning, script injection, credential leaks, deploy approval gates, artifact signing, SBOM generation, Docker security, package integrity, timeout enforcement, vulnerability scanning, TLS verification, and more. The Kubernetes provider focuses on workload posture (image digest pinning, securityContext, hostPath / host-namespace exposure, RBAC blast radius, Secret hygiene). The Helm provider renders charts via helm template and runs the Kubernetes rule pack on the result, so today's K8S-* rules apply to chart-deployed workloads without duplication. See docs/providers/ for the full per-check reference.

---

How it works

                 +-----------+
  Config files   |  Scanner  |   450+ checks across 16 providers
  or live APIs ---->         +---> Findings (check_id, severity, resource)
                 +-----------+
                       |
                 +-----------+
                 |  Scorer   |   Severity-weighted: CRITICAL=20, HIGH=10, MED=5, LOW=2
                 |           +---> Score 0-100, Grade A/B/C/D
                 +-----------+
                       |
                 +-----------+
                 |   Gate    |   --fail-on, --min-grade, --max-failures, --baseline
                 |           +---> Exit 0 (pass) or 1 (fail)
                 +-----------+
                       |
                 +-----------+
                 | Reporter  |   Terminal, JSON, HTML, SARIF 2.1.0
                 +-----------+

Every finding is annotated with compliance controls from all enabled standards, so a single scan satisfies multiple audit frameworks.

---

Key features

Feature	Description
Autofix	--fix emits unified-diff patches; --fix --apply writes in place. 100 fixers cover script injection, secrets, timeouts, pinning, Docker flags, TLS, Kubernetes securityContext, Cloud Build options, and more.
CI gate	--fail-on HIGH, --min-grade B, --max-failures 5, --fail-on-check GHA-002. Any condition trips exit 1.
Baselines	--baseline prior.json or --baseline-from-git origin/main:report.json. Only gate on new findings.
Diff-mode	--diff-base origin/main scans only files changed by the branch.
Suppressions	.pipelinecheckignore (flat or YAML with expires: dates).
Custom secrets	--secret-pattern '^acme_[a-f0-9]{32}$' extends the credential scanner.
Glob selection	--checks 'GHA-*' or --checks '*-008' to scope checks.
Standard audit	--standard-report nist_ssdf prints the control-to-check matrix and coverage gaps.
Custom rule DSL	--custom-rules PATH loads YAML-defined rules that run alongside the built-in catalog. Supports GHA, GitLab, Bitbucket, Azure, CircleCI, Cloud Build, Kubernetes, and Helm. Rule shape: for_each: jsonpath + assert: predicate (eq / regex / exists / len_gt / all_of / not / …). Findings flow through the same scoring, gating, and SARIF as built-ins. See docs/writing_a_custom_rule.md.
Component inventory	--inventory emits the list of resources / workflows / templates the scanner discovered, with per-type metadata (encryption, runtime, tags, lifecycle policies). Filter with --inventory-type 'AWS::IAM::*'; skip checks entirely with --inventory-only. Feeds asset-register dashboards and drift detectors.

---

Output formats

pipeline_check --output terminal            # rich table to stdout (default)
pipeline_check --output json                # machine-readable JSON
pipeline_check --output html --output-file report.html  # self-contained HTML
pipeline_check --output sarif --output-file scan.sarif  # SARIF 2.1.0 for GitHub/GitLab
pipeline_check --output both                # terminal on stderr + JSON on stdout

---

CI integration

GitHub Actions

- name: Scan CI/CD security posture
  run: |
    pip install pipeline-check
    pipeline_check --pipeline github \
      --output sarif --output-file pipeline-check.sarif \
      --fail-on HIGH

- name: Upload SARIF
  if: always()
  uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v3
  with:
    sarif_file: pipeline-check.sarif

GitLab CI

security-scan:
  script:
    - pip install pipeline-check
    - pipeline_check --pipeline gitlab --fail-on HIGH --output json > report.json
  artifacts:
    reports:
      sast: report.json

Any CI system

# Gate on grade
pipeline_check --pipeline github --min-grade B

# Gate on new findings only (baseline diff)
pipeline_check --pipeline github --fail-on HIGH \
  --baseline-from-git origin/main:baseline.json

Exit codes: 0 = pass, 1 = gate failed, 2 = scanner error, 3 = config error.

Pre-commit

pipeline_check ships hook definitions for the pre-commit framework. Each hook is scoped to one provider so a Dockerfile change doesn't run the GitHub Actions scanner. Enable just the hooks for the providers your repo ships through:

# .pre-commit-config.yaml
repos:
  - repo: https://github.com/dmartinochoa/pipeline-check
    rev: v0.3.3   # pin to a release tag
    hooks:
      - id: pipeline-check-github
      - id: pipeline-check-dockerfile

All hooks default to --fail-on HIGH. Override with args: for a softer gate (e.g. args: [--fail-on, CRITICAL]).

---

Configuration

Every CLI flag can be set in pyproject.toml, .pipeline-check.yml, or environment variables. Precedence: CLI > env > file > defaults.

# pyproject.toml
[tool.pipeline_check]
pipeline = "github"
severity_threshold = "MEDIUM"

[tool.pipeline_check.gate]
fail_on = "HIGH"
baseline = "artifacts/baseline.json"
ignore_file = ".pipelinecheckignore"

Full reference: docs/config.md.

---

Compliance standards

Each finding is tagged with controls from all enabled frameworks. One scan covers multiple audits.

Standard	Version	Coverage
OWASP Top 10 CI/CD Security Risks	2022	10/10 risks
SLSA Build Track	1.0	6/7 levels (110 check mappings)
NIST SSDF (SP 800-218)	v1.1	CI/CD subset
NIST SP 800-53	Rev. 5	CI/CD subset
NIST SP 800-190	2017	Container CI/CD subset
NIST CSF 2.0	2.0	CI/CD subset
CIS Software Supply Chain	1.0	CI/CD subset
CIS AWS Foundations	3.0.0	CI/CD subset
PCI DSS v4.0	4.0	CI/CD subset
SOC 2 Trust Services Criteria	2017 (rev. 2022)	CC6/CC7/CC8 subset
NSA/CISA ESF Supply Chain	2022	CI/CD subset
OpenSSF Scorecard	v5	CI/CD subset
Microsoft S2C2F	2024-05	CI/CD subset

# Explore a standard's control-to-check matrix
pipeline_check --standard-report slsa

# Restrict a scan to specific standards
pipeline_check --standard owasp_cicd_top_10 --standard nist_ssdf

Standards are pure data. Adding SOC 2 or an internal policy is one Python module. See docs/standards/.

---

CLI reference

Flag	Default	Description
--pipeline / -p	auto	auto (detect from cwd), aws, terraform, cloudformation, github, gitlab, bitbucket, azure, jenkins, circleci, cloudbuild, dockerfile, kubernetes, helm
--output / -o	terminal	terminal, json, html, sarif, junit, markdown, both
--output-file / -O		Required with html; optional with sarif
--fail-on / -f		Fail if any finding >= severity (CRITICAL, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW)
--min-grade		Fail if grade worse than A/B/C/D
--max-failures		Fail if > N effective findings
--fail-on-check		Fail if named check fails (repeat for multiple)
--baseline		Prior JSON report; existing findings don't gate
--baseline-from-git		REF:PATH. Resolves baseline via git show
--ignore-file	.pipelinecheckignore	Suppressions (flat or YAML with expires:)
--diff-base		Only scan files changed vs this git ref
--fix		Emit unified-diff patches to stdout
--apply		With --fix, write patches in place
--checks / -c	all	Check ID(s) or globs (GHA-*, *-008)
--severity-threshold	INFO	Minimum severity to display
--secret-pattern		Extra regex for credential scanning (repeat)
--custom-rules		YAML rule file or directory of rule files; loaded alongside the built-in catalog (repeatable)
--standard	all	Standard(s) to annotate findings with
--standard-report		Print control-to-check matrix and exit
--inventory		Emit scanned-component inventory alongside findings
--inventory-type		Glob pattern to scope inventory by type (repeatable, implies --inventory)
--inventory-only		Skip checks; emit inventory only (implies --inventory)
--config	auto	Config file path (TOML or YAML)
--config-check		Validate config, exit non-zero on unknown keys
--man [TOPIC]		Extended docs (gate, autofix, diff, secrets, standards, config, output, lambda, recipes)
--region / -r	us-east-1	AWS region
--profile		AWS CLI named profile
--verbose / -v		Debug output to stderr
--quiet / -q		Suppress all output; exit code only
--version		Print version

Provider-specific path flags (--gha-path, --gitlab-path, --bitbucket-path, --cfn-template, --azure-path, --jenkinsfile-path, --circleci-path, --tf-plan, --cloudbuild-path, --dockerfile-path, --k8s-path, --helm-path) are auto-detected from the working directory when omitted. The Helm provider also takes --helm-values FILE and --helm-set KEY=VALUE (both repeatable), forwarded to helm template.

Subcommand: pipeline_check init writes a starter .pipeline-check.yml to the current directory, pre-filling the pipeline: key based on what it finds in cwd. Pass --path PATH to redirect the output, or --force to overwrite an existing file.

---

Architecture

pipeline_check/
├── cli.py                     # Click CLI
├── lambda_handler.py          # AWS Lambda entry point
└── core/
    ├── scanner.py             # Provider-agnostic orchestrator
    ├── scorer.py              # Severity-weighted scoring (A/B/C/D)
    ├── gate.py                # CI gate (pass/fail thresholds + baselines)
    ├── autofix.py             # 100 fixers (text-based, comment-preserving)
    ├── reporter.py            # Terminal + JSON
    ├── html_reporter.py       # Self-contained HTML
    ├── sarif_reporter.py      # SARIF 2.1.0
    ├── config.py              # TOML/YAML/env config loader
    ├── providers/             # One module per provider (register + go)
    ├── standards/data/        # One module per compliance standard
    └── checks/
        ├── base.py            # Finding, Severity, shared detection patterns
        ├── aws/rules/         # 71 rule-based checks (CB, CP, CD, ECR, IAM, PBAC, S3, CT, CWL, SM, CA, CCM, LMB, KMS, SSM, EB, SIGN, CW)
        ├── terraform/         # AWS-parity checks against plan JSON
        ├── cloudformation/    # AWS-parity checks against CFN templates (YAML/JSON)
        ├── github/rules/      # GHA-001 .. GHA-036
        ├── gitlab/rules/      # GL-001 .. GL-032
        ├── bitbucket/rules/   # BB-001 .. BB-029
        ├── azure/rules/       # ADO-001 .. ADO-030
        ├── jenkins/rules/     # JF-001 .. JF-032
        ├── circleci/rules/    # CC-001 .. CC-031
        ├── cloudbuild/rules/  # GCB-001 .. GCB-022
        ├── dockerfile/rules/  # DF-001 .. DF-020
        ├── kubernetes/rules/  # K8S-001 .. K8S-030
        ├── helm/              # Renders charts; reuses the K8s rule pack
        └── custom/            # YAML rule loader + predicate engine

Adding a new check is a one-file change. Adding a new provider is three files. See docs/providers/ for the full pattern.

---

Python API

Embed pipeline-check in your own tooling without subprocess + JSON parsing. The top-level surface is small and stable across minor releases:

from pipeline_check import Scanner, Severity, score

scanner = Scanner(pipeline="github", gha_path=".github/workflows")
findings = scanner.run()

critical = [
    f for f in findings
    if not f.passed and f.severity is Severity.CRITICAL
]
result = score(findings)
print(f"score={result['score']} grade={result['grade']}")

Public surface: Scanner, Finding, Severity, Confidence, ControlRef, score, ScoreResult, Chain, ChainRule, evaluate_chains, list_chain_rules, available_providers(), available_standards(), load_custom_rules(), LoadedCustomRules, CustomRuleError, __version__. Anything reached through pipeline_check.core.* is internal and may move between releases.

---

Lambda deployment

Pipeline-Check can run as an AWS Lambda for scheduled scans. See docs/lambda.md for packaging, IAM permissions, event payload shapes, and SNS alerting.

---

Extending

New check: Drop a module in checks/<provider>/rules/ exporting RULE and check(). The orchestrator auto-discovers it.

New provider: Subclass BaseProvider, register in providers/__init__.py. Available via --pipeline <name> immediately.

New standard: Add a Python module under standards/data/ with a STANDARD object. The CLI and reporters pick it up automatically.

See docs/providers/README.md for the full contract.

---

License

MIT. See LICENSE.