The challenge behind the engagement.
Security becomes a step the pipeline enforces rather than a scheduled review. We review the delivery pipeline you already run against the common ways pipelines are attacked: who can trigger a build and merge, what each job is allowed to do, credentials left sitting in the pipeline, builds that run untrusted contributions, and unvetted third-party steps. We place checks stage by stage: secret and code scanning on proposed changes; bill-of-materials, dependency, and configuration scanning at build; signing at release; and a gate at deployment. Manual checkpoints add design review and owner-routed sign-off. Gates start in report-only mode, are tuned with your developers, then block on agreed severities; each leaves a record that becomes evidence at release. Your team owns the pipeline and tools afterward; we do not operate them.
For platform engineering leads and CTOs adding security to CI/CD after a review found unpinned third-party steps or stored cloud keys. Also before SOC 2 or FedRAMP change-management evidence is due, or when consolidating build platforms after an acquisition.
What we do.
What you can use.
Review the pipeline before adding gates
You grant read or admin access to your organization settings, pipeline definitions, the artifact registry, and the cloud roles your pipelines assume. We review every pipeline for how it could be attacked: who can trigger and merge, what each job can do, long-lived credentials, and builds that run untrusted contributions. With your platform engineer we agree which pipelines go first and which severities block.
Place gates stage by stage
Every gate is defined by stage, tool, rule set, blocking policy, exception path, owner, and the record it leaves. Changes land as proposed changes: third-party steps locked to a known version, least-privilege access for each job, short-lived cloud credentials in place of stored keys, and signing steps. We run each gate in report-only mode, tune rules with your developers, then block on agreed severities.
Index the evidence and prove the gates work
You receive an evidence index tying each record to recognized secure-development practices and to the SOC 2, PCI DSS, or FedRAMP control it supports. A repository health score is taken before and after. The validation record shows a seeded bad change refused and a clean release passing with signed evidence, plus a runbook for tuning gates and handling exceptions.
Who it’s for.
When you need it.
- Platform engineering teams that own a shared build pipeline used across many services
- Organizations whose pipeline holds long-lived cloud keys or unpinned third-party steps
- Teams that want security enforced inside the pipeline rather than reviewed at the end
- Groups consolidating build platforms and wanting consistent gates across all of them
- A review found stored cloud keys, over-scoped tokens, or unpinned pipeline steps
- Change-management evidence is due for a SOC 2 or FedRAMP examination
- Release velocity is rising and manual security checks no longer keep pace
- You are migrating or merging pipelines and want gates built in from the start
What the scope can include.
- 01
A review of each pipeline against the common ways delivery pipelines are attacked and recognized hardening guidance
- 02
Pipeline identity: what each job is allowed to do, long-lived access tokens, and short-lived cloud credentials in place of stored keys
- 03
Build steps that can be poisoned: triggers that run untrusted contributions, untrusted code pulled into a build, and injection through build inputs
- 04
Gates on proposed changes and builds: secret scanning, code scanning, dependency review, bill-of-materials generation, and configuration scanning
- 05
Gates at release and deployment: signing releases, recording how they were built, refusing anything unsigned, and requiring approvals
- 06
Manual gates: a design-review checkpoint for new services or authentication changes, owner-routed review on sensitive paths, and approval for pipeline changes
What it typically costs.
One rate: $150/hour.
Every engagement is priced by the hours it takes at one flat rate, with scoping, the work, and the final deliverables included. Find the size closest to yours.
One delivery pipeline for one or two applications
About 40–72 hoursSeveral pipelines shared by a few development teams
About 90–160 hoursShared pipeline templates rolled out across many teams
About 180–300 hours- Number of pipelines, repositories, and teams
- How many security checks are added and tuned to cut noise
- Whether build machines are run by you or by the vendor
- Release-evidence needs for audits or customer contracts
2–3 weeks for one pipeline; 6–12 weeks for organization-wide templates
Get a fixed quote for your scopeRanges are planning estimates at $150/hour, not a quote. Your price is confirmed in writing after a scoping call, before any work begins.
What you take forward.
- Gate map listing stage, tool, rule set, blocking policy, exception path, the record it leaves, and owner for every gate
- Pipeline changes delivered as proposed changes: third-party steps locked to a known version, least-privilege access, short-lived cloud credentials, and signing steps
- Evidence index tying each scan result, bill of materials, signature, and approval record to the practice or framework control it supports
- Validation record showing a seeded bad change refused and a clean release passing with signed evidence, plus a tuning and exception runbook
Final coverage, deliverables, timing, and any retesting or implementation work are confirmed before the engagement begins.
Before we get started.
Will blocking gates slow releases, and can we start in warn-only mode?
Yes, start in report-only mode; that is how we roll out every gate. For a cycle or two the gate reports without blocking while we tune rules against your real code with your developers. We remove the noise and agree which severities are worth stopping a merge. Each gate gets an exception path with an owner and an expiry so a hotfix never depends on finding us. Only then does it block. The tuning and exception runbook we leave behind keeps the gates on after we are gone, instead of quietly disabled.
Which artifacts can we hand to a SOC 2 auditor or a FedRAMP assessor as change-management evidence?
Approval records and required-review settings show that changes were authorized. Scan results from code and secret scanning show testing before merge. Bills of materials, build records, and signed releases show what was built and by which pipeline. Deployment approval logs show who approved a release. The evidence index maps each record to the practice and to the SOC 2 change-management criteria, PCI DSS, or FedRAMP control it supports. Whether an assessor accepts it is their decision; we prepare the evidence, we do not perform the independent assessment.
- Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) Version 1.1: Recommendations for Mitigating the Risk of Software Vulnerabilities
- Strategies for the Integration of Software Supply Chain Security in DevSecOps CI/CD Pipelines
- SLSA specification
- 2026 Minimum Elements for a Software Bill of Materials (SBOM)
- OWASP Top 10 CI/CD Security Risks
- Threat Modeling - OWASP Cheat Sheet Series
- 2025 CWE Top 25 Most Dangerous Software Weaknesses