Policies

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com, Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Policies provide security and compliance teams with a way to enforce controls globally in their organization.

Security teams can ensure:

• Security scanners are enforced in development team pipelines with proper configuration.
• That all scan jobs execute without any changes or alterations.
• That proper approvals are provided on merge requests based on results from those findings.

Compliance teams can:

• Centrally enforce multiple approvers on all merge requests
• Enforce various settings on projects in scope of organizational requirements, such as enabling or locking merge request and repository settings.

The following policy types are available:

• Scan execution policy. Enforce security scans, either as part of the pipeline or on a specified schedule.
• Merge request approval policy. Enforce project-level settings and approval rules based on scan results.
• Pipeline execution policy. Enforce CI/CD jobs as part of project pipelines.

Security policy project

A security policy project is a special type of project used only to contain policies. The policies are stored in the .gitlab/security-policies/policy.yml YAML file.

To enforce the policies contained in an security policy project you link it to a project, subgroup, group, or multiples of each. A security policy project can contain multiple policies but they are enforced together. A security policy project enforced on a group or subgroup applies to everything below in the hierarchy, including all subgroups and their projects.

Policy changes made in a merge request take effect as soon as the merge request is merged. Those that do not go through a merge request, but instead are committed directly to the default branch, may require up to 10 minutes before the policy changes take effect.

Policy design guidelines

When designing your policies, your goals should be to:

• Design policy enforcement for minimum overhead but maximum coverage
• Ensure separation of duties

Enforcement

To enforce policies to meet your requirements, consider the following factors:

• Inheritance: By default, a policy is enforced on the organizational units it's linked to, and all their descendent subgroups and their projects.
• Scope: To customize policy enforcement, you can define a policy's scope to match your needs.

Inheritance

To maximize policy coverage, link a security policy project to the highest organizational units that achieves your objectives: groups, subgroups, or projects. A policy is enforced on the organizational units it's linked to, and all their descendent subgroups and their projects. Enforcement at the highest point minimizes the number of security policies required, minimizing the management overhead.

You can use policy inheritance to incrementally roll out policies. For example, when rolling out a new policy, you can enforce it on a single project, then conduct testing. If the tests pass, you can then remove it from the project and enforce it on a group, moving up the hierarchy until the policy is enforced on all applicable projects.

Policies enforced on an existing group or subgroup are automatically enforced in any new subgroups and projects created under them, provided that all of the following are true:

• The new subgroups and projects are included in the scope definition of the policy (for example, the scope includes all projects in this group).
• The existing group or subgroup is already linked to the security policy project.

NOTE: GitLab SaaS users can enforce policies against their top-level group or across subgroups, but cannot enforce policies across GitLab SaaS top-level groups. GitLab self-managed users can enforce policies across multiple top-level groups in their instance.

The following example illustrates two groups and their structure:

• Alpha group contains two subgroups, each of which contains multiple projects.
• Security and compliance group contains two policies.

Alpha group (contains code projects)

• Finance (subgroup)
  • Project A
  • Accounts receiving (subgroup)
    • Project B
    • Project C
• Engineering (subgroup)
  • Project K
  • Project L
  • Project M

Security and compliance group (contains security policy projects)

• Security Policy Management
• Security Policy Management - security policy project
  • SAST policy
  • Secret Detection policy

Assuming no policies are enforced, consider the following examples:

• If the "SAST" policy is enforced at group Alpha, it applies to its subgroups, Finance and Engineering, and all their projects and subgroups. If the "Secret Detection" policy is enforced also at subgroup "Accounts receiving", both policies apply to projects B and C. However, only the "SAST" policy applies to project A.
• If the "SAST" policy is enforced at subgroup "Accounts receiving", it applies only to projects B and C. No policy applies to project A.
• If the "Secret Detection" policy is enforced at project K, it applies only to project K. No other subgroups or projects have a policy apply to them.

Scope

• Introduced in GitLab 16.7 with a flag named security_policies_policy_scope. Enabled by default.
• Generally available in GitLab 16.11. Feature flag security_policies_policy_scope removed.
• Scoping by group introduced in GitLab 17.4.

You can refine a policy's scope by:

• Compliance frameworks: Enforce a policy on projects with selected compliance frameworks.
• Group:
  • All projects in a group, including all its descendent subgroups and their projects. Optionally exclude specific projects.
  • All projects in multiple groups, including their descendent subgroups and their projects. Only groups linked to the same security policy project can be listed in the policy. Optionally exclude specific projects.
• Projects: Include or exclude specific projects. Only projects linked to the same security policy project can be listed in the policy.

These options can be used together in the same policy. However, exclusion takes precedence over inclusion.

policy_scope keyword

Use the policy_scope keyword to enforce the policy on only those groups, projects, compliance frameworks, or a combination, that you specify.

Scope examples

In this example, the scan execution policy enforces a SAST scan in every release pipeline, on every project with the compliance frameworks with an ID either 2 or 11 applied to them.

---
scan_execution_policy:
- name: Enforce specified scans in every release pipeline
  description: This policy enforces a SAST scan for release branches
  enabled: true
  rules:
  - type: pipeline
    branches:
    - release/*
  actions:
  - scan: sast
  policy_scope:
    compliance_frameworks:
      - id: 2
      - id: 11

In this example, the scan execution policy enforces a secret detection and SAST scan on pipelines for the default branch, on all projects in the group with ID 203 (including all descendent subgroups and their projects), excluding the project with ID 64.

- name: Enforce specified scans in every default branch pipeline
  description: This policy enforces Secret Detection and SAST scans for the default branch
  enabled: true
  rules:
  - type: pipeline
    branches:
    - main
  actions:
  - scan: secret_detection
  - scan: sast
  policy_scope:
    groups:
      including:
        - id: 203
    projects:
      excluding:
        - id: 64

Separation of duties

Separation of duties is vital to successfully implementing policies. Implement policies that achieve the necessary compliance and security requirements, while allowing development teams to achieve their goals.

Security and compliance teams:

• Should be responsible for defining policies and working with development teams to ensure the policies meet their needs.

Development teams:

• Should not be able to disable, modify, or circumvent the policies in any way.

To enforce a security policy project on a group, subgroup, or project, you must have either:

• The Owner role in that group, subgroup, or project.
• A custom role in that group, subgroup, or project with the manage_security_policy_link permission.

The Owner role and custom roles with the manage_security_policy_link permission follow the standard hierarchy rules across groups, subgroups, and projects:

Policy implementation

Implementation options for security policy projects differ slightly between GitLab.com, GitLab Dedicated, and GitLab self-managed. The main difference is that on GitLab.com it's only possible to create subgroups. Ensuring separation of duties requires more granular permission configuration.

Enforce policies globally in your GitLab.com namespace

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate Offering: GitLab.com

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role or custom role with the manage_security_policy_link permission to link to the security policy project. For more information, see separation of duties.

The high-level workflow for enforcing policies globally across all subgroups and projects in your GitLab.com namespace:

1. Visit the Policies tab from your top-level group.

2. In the subgroup, go to the Policies tab and create a test policy.

   (Tip: You can create a policy as disabled for testing.) Creating the policy automatically creates a new security policy project under your top-level group. This project is used to store your policy.yml or policy-as-code.

3. Check and set permissions in the newly created project as desired.

   By default, Owners and Maintainers are able to create, edit, and delete policies. Developers can propose policy changes but cannot merge them.

4. In the security policy project created within your subgroup, create the policies required.

   You can use the policy editor in the Security Policy Management project you created, under the Policies tab. Or you can directly update the policies in the policy.yml file stored in the newly-created security policy project Security Policy Management - security policy project.

5. Link up groups, subgroups, or projects to the security policy project.

   As a subgroup owner, or project owner with proper permissions, you can visit the Policies page and create a link to the security policy project. Include the full path and the project's name should end with "- security policy project". All linked groups, subgroups, and projects become "enforceable" by any policies created in the security policy project. For details, see Link to a security policy project.

6. By default, when a policy is enabled, it is enforced on all projects in linked groups, subgroups, and projects.

   For more granular enforcement, add a "policy scope". Policy scopes allow you to enforce policies against a specific set of projects or against projects containing a given set of compliance framework labels.

7. If you need additional restrictions, for example to block inherited permissions or require additional review or approval of policy changes, you can create an additional policy scoped only to your security policy project and enforce additional approvals.

Enforce policies globally in GitLab Dedicated or your GitLab self-managed instance

DETAILS: Tier: Ultimate Offering: Self-managed, GitLab Dedicated

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role or custom role with the manage_security_policy_link permission to link to the security policy project. For more information, see separation of duties.
• To support approval groups globally across your instance, enable security_policy_global_group_approvers_enabled in your GitLab instance application settings.

The high-level workflow for enforcing policies across multiple groups:

1. Create a separate group to contain your policies and ensure separation of duties.

   By creating a separate standalone group, you can minimize the number of users who inherit permissions.

2. In the new group, visit the Policies tab.

   This serves as the primary location of the policy editor, allowing you to create and manage policies in the UI.

3. Create a test policy (you can create a policy as disabled for testing).

   Creating the policy automatically creates a new security policy project under your group. This project is used to store your policy.yml or policy-as-code.

4. Check and set permissions in the newly created project as desired.

   By default, Owners and Maintainers are able to create, edit, and delete policies. Developers can propose policy changes but cannot merge them.

5. In the security policy project created in your subgroup, create the policies required.

   You can use the policy editor in the Security Policy Management project you created, under the Policies tab. Or you can directly update the policies in the policy.yml file stored in the newly-created security policy project Security Policy Management - security policy project.

6. Link up groups, subgroups, or projects to the security policy project.

   As a subgroup owner, or project owner with proper permissions, you can visit the Policies page and create a link to the security policy project. Include the full path and the project's name should end with "-security policy project". All linked groups, subgroups, and projects become "enforceable" by any policies created in the security policy project. For more information, see link to a security policy project.

7. By default, when a policy is enabled, it is enforced on all projects in linked groups, subgroups, and projects. For more granular enforcement, add a policy scope. Policy scopes allow you to enforce policies against a specific set of projects or against projects containing a given set of compliance framework labels.

8. If you need additional restrictions, for example to block inherited permissions or require additional review or approval of policy changes, you can create an additional policy scoped only to your security policy project and enforce additional approvals.

Link to a security policy project

To enforce the policies contained in a security policy project against a group, subgroup, or project, you link them. By default, all linked entities are enforced. To enforce policies granularly per policy, you can set a "policy scope" in each policy.

Prerequisites:

• You must have the Owner role or custom role with themanage_security_policy_link permission to link to the security policy project. For more information, see separation of duties.

To link a group, subgroup, or project to a security policy project:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project, subgroup, or group.
2. Select Secure > Policies.
3. Select Edit Policy Project, then search for and select the project you would like to link from the dropdown list.
4. Select Save.

To unlink a security policy project, follow the same steps but instead select the trash can icon in the dialog.

Viewing the linked security policy project

All users who have access to the project policy page and are not project owners instead view a button linking out to the associated security policy project.

Policy recommendations

When implementing policies, consider the following recommendations.

Branch names

When specifying branch names in a policy, use a generic category of protected branches, such as default branch or all protected branches, not individual branch names.

A policy is enforced on a project only if the specified branch exists in that project. For example, if your policy enforces rules on branch main but some projects in scope are using production as their default branch, the policy is not applied for the latter.

Push rules

In GitLab 17.3 and earlier, if you use push rules to validate branch names ensure they allow creation of branches with the prefix update-policy-. This branch naming prefix is used when a security policy is created or amended. For example, update-policy-1659094451, where 1659094451 is the timestamp. If push rules block the creation of the branch the following error occurs:

Branch name update-policy-<timestamp> does not follow the pattern <branch_name_regex>.

In GitLab 17.4 and later, security policy projects are excluded from push rules that enforce branch name validation.

Policy management

The Policies page displays deployed policies for all available environments. You can check a policy's information (for example, description or enforcement status), and create and edit deployed policies:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.
2. Select Secure > Policies.

Policy editor

Use the policy editor to create, edit, and delete policies:

1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your project.

2. Select Secure > Policies.

   • To create a new policy, select New policy which is located in the Policies page's header. You can then select which type of policy to create.
   • To edit an existing policy, select Edit policy in the selected policy drawer.

   The policy editor has two modes:

   • The visual Rule mode allows you to construct and preview policy rules using rule blocks and related controls.

     

   • YAML mode allows you to enter a policy definition in .yaml format and is aimed at expert users and cases that the Rule mode doesn't support.

     

     You can use both modes interchangeably and switch between them at any time. If a YAML resource is incorrect or contains data not supported by the Rule mode, Rule mode is automatically disabled. If the YAML is incorrect, you must use YAML mode to fix your policy before Rule mode is available again.

3. Select Configure with a merge request to save and apply the changes.

   The policy's YAML is validated and any resulting errors are displayed.

4. Review and merge the resulting merge request.

   If you are a project owner and a security policy project is not associated with this project, a security policy project is created and linked to this project when the merge request is created.

Managing projects in bulk by using a script

You can use the Vulnerability-Check Migration script to bulk create policies or associate security policy projects with development projects. For instructions and a demonstration of how to use the Vulnerability-Check Migration script, see Migration from Vulnerability-Check rules to Scan Result Policies with automated script.

Troubleshooting

When working with security policies, consider these troubleshooting tips:

• You should not link a security policy project to both a development project and the group or subgroup the development project belongs to. Linking this way results in approval rules from the merge request approval policies not being applied to merge requests in the development project.
• When creating a merge request approval policy, neither the array severity_levels nor the array vulnerability_states in the scan_finding rule can be left empty. For a working rule, at least one entry must exist for each array.

If you are still experiencing issues, you can view recent reported bugs and raise new unreported issues.