Modern CI/CD pipelines move fast—and so do attackers. The goal isn’t to add friction; it’s to make the secure path the easy path.
Start with least privilege
Give pipelines only the permissions they need, and nothing more. Use short‑lived tokens, scoped credentials, and provider‑native roles. Rotate frequently and remove anything that isn’t used.
Make policy the default
Codify your security requirements in policy‑as‑code and run them as gates. Enforce guardrails (what must be true) while leaving room for teams to move quickly within the safe zone.
Treat secrets like production data
Centralize secret storage, enforce access controls, and avoid copying secrets into logs or build artifacts. If it can leak, it eventually will.
Outcome
When done right, developers barely notice the guardrails—and that’s the point. Velocity stays high while risk drops.