• Merge request with multiple pipelines
• Scan result policy editor
• Scan result policies schema
• Scan result policy schema
• scan_finding rule type
• license_finding rule type
• require_approval action type
• Example security scan result policies project
• Example for Scan Result Policy editor
• Example situations where scan result policies require additional approval

Scan result policies

You can use scan result policies to take action based on scan results. For example, one type of scan result policy is a security approval policy that allows approval to be required based on the findings of one or more security scan jobs. Scan result policies are evaluated after a CI scanning job is fully executed.

The following video gives you an overview of GitLab scan result policies:

Merge request with multiple pipelines

A project can have multiple pipeline types configured. A single commit can initiate multiple pipelines, each of which may contain a security scan.

• In GitLab 16.3 and later, the results of all completed pipelines for the latest commit in the MR’s source and target branch are evaluated and used to enforce the scan result policy. Parent-child pipelines and on-demand DAST pipelines are not considered.
• In GitLab 16.2 and earlier, only the results of the latest completed pipeline were evaluated when enforcing scan result policies.

Scan result policy editor

Once your policy is complete, save it by selecting Configure with a merge request at the bottom of the editor. This redirects you to the merge request on the project’s configured security policy project. If a security policy project doesn’t link to your project, GitLab creates such a project for you. Existing policies can also be removed from the editor interface by selecting Delete policy at the bottom of the editor.

Most policy changes take effect as soon as the merge request is merged. Any changes that do not go through a merge request and are committed directly to the default branch may require up to 10 minutes before the policy changes take effect.

The policy editor supports YAML mode and rule mode.

Scan result policies schema

The YAML file with scan result policies consists of an array of objects matching the scan result policy schema nested under the scan_result_policy key. You can configure a maximum of five policies under the scan_result_policy key.

When you save a new policy, GitLab validates its contents against this JSON schema. If you’re not familiar with how to read JSON schemas, the following sections and tables provide an alternative.

Scan result policy schema

scan_finding rule type

license_finding rule type

This rule enforces the defined actions based on license findings.

require_approval action type

This action sets an approval rule to be required when conditions are met for at least one rule in the defined policy.

Requirements and limitations:

• You must add the respective security scanning tools. Otherwise, scan result policies do not have any effect.
• The maximum number of policies is five.
• Each policy can have a maximum of five rules.
• All configured scanners must be present in the merge request’s latest pipeline. If not, approvals are required even if some vulnerability criteria have not been met.

Example security scan result policies project

You can use this example in a .gitlab/security-policies/policy.yml file stored in a security policy project:

---
scan_result_policy:
- name: critical vulnerability CS approvals
  description: critical severity level only for container scanning
  enabled: true
  rules:
  - type: scan_finding
    branches:
    - main
    scanners:
    - container_scanning
    vulnerabilities_allowed: 0
    severity_levels:
    - critical
    vulnerability_states:
    - newly_detected
    vulnerability_attributes:
      false_positive: true
      fix_available: true
  actions:
  - type: require_approval
    approvals_required: 1
    user_approvers:
    - adalberto.dare
- name: secondary CS approvals
  description: secondary only for container scanning
  enabled: true
  rules:
  - type: scan_finding
    branches:
    - main
    scanners:
    - container_scanning
    vulnerabilities_allowed: 1
    severity_levels:
    - low
    - unknown
    vulnerability_states:
    - detected
    vulnerability_age:
      operator: greater_than
      value: 30
      interval: day
  actions:
  - type: require_approval
    approvals_required: 1
    role_approvers:
    - owner

In this example:

• Every MR that contains new critical vulnerabilities identified by container scanning requires one approval from alberto.dare.
• Every MR that contains more than one preexisting low or unknown vulnerability older than 30 days identified by container scanning requires one approval from a project member with the Owner role.

Example for Scan Result Policy editor

You can use this example in the YAML mode of the Scan Result Policy editor. It corresponds to a single object from the previous example:

- name: critical vulnerability CS approvals
  description: critical severity level only for container scanning
  enabled: true
  rules:
  - type: scan_finding
    branches:
    - main
    scanners:
    - container_scanning
    vulnerabilities_allowed: 1
    severity_levels:
    - critical
    vulnerability_states:
    - newly_detected
  actions:
  - type: require_approval
    approvals_required: 1
    user_approvers:
    - adalberto.dare

Example situations where scan result policies require additional approval

There are several situations where the scan result policy requires an additional approval step. For example:

• The number of security jobs is reduced in the working branch and no longer matches the number of security jobs in the target branch. Users can’t skip the Scanning Result Policies by removing scanning jobs from the CI/CD configuration. Only the security scans that are configured in the scan result policy rules are checked for removal.

  For example, consider a situation where the default branch pipeline has four security scans: sast, secret_detection, container_scanning, and dependency_scanning. A scan result policy enforces two scanners: container_scanning and dependency_scanning. If an MR removes a scan that is configured in scan result policy, container_scanning for example, an additional approval is required.

• Someone stops a pipeline security job, and users can’t skip the security scan.
• A job in a merge request fails and is configured with allow_failure: false. As a result, the pipeline is in a blocked state.
• A pipeline has a manual job that must run successfully for the entire pipeline to pass.