Policy As Code

Encode organizational, security, and operational policies as code so they can be versioned, tested, and automatically enforced. Use when implementing automated guardrails for infrastructure, deployments, or configuration.

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Policy as Code

Overview

Policy as Code turns rules that used to live in wikis or people’s heads into executable, reviewable, testable artifacts.

When to Use

  • Enforcing security or compliance rules on infrastructure or deployments
  • Creating guardrails for self-service platforms
  • Replacing manual review checklists with automation

Common Tools & Approaches

  • OPA / Gatekeeper / Kyverno for Kubernetes
  • Sentinel, Checkov, tfsec, etc. for IaC
  • Custom policies in CI for application and config rules

Practices

  • Keep policies clear, documented, and versioned
  • Test policies (including allowing expected valid cases)
  • Provide good error messages so developers can self-correct
  • Start with audit/warn mode before hard enforcement when rolling out
  • Treat policy changes with the same care as application code

Verification

  • Policies correctly allow good configurations and block bad ones
  • Developers understand how to satisfy the policies
  • Policy coverage matches the highest-risk rules

itsual/agent-skills-collection/tree/main/skills/engineering/policy-as-code commit cb8a3cab4d

Frequently asked questions

npx skillmds@latest add itsual/policy-as-code