CI/CD Integration for Terraform Security

CI/CD Integration for Terraform Security

Integrating security scanning into CI/CD pipelines ensures every Terraform change undergoes security validation before deployment. This automation catches security issues early while maintaining deployment velocity. Effective integration requires balancing security thoroughness with pipeline performance and developer experience.

Pre-commit hooks provide the earliest security feedback by scanning Terraform code before it enters version control. Tools like pre-commit framework can run tfsec, terraform fmt, and terraform validate automatically. This immediate feedback helps developers fix issues while they have context, reducing the cost of remediation.

Pull request scanning adds another security layer by validating Terraform changes during code review. CI/CD platforms can run comprehensive security scans and post results as pull request comments. This approach enables security teams to review high-risk changes while automating approval for standard configurations.

# Example GitHub Actions workflow for Terraform security
name: Terraform Security Scan

on:
  pull_request:
    paths:
      - '**.tf'
      - '**.tfvars'

jobs:
  security-scan:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      
      - name: Run tfsec
        uses: aquasecurity/[email protected]
        with:
          format: json
          out: tfsec-results.json
          
      - name: Run Checkov
        uses: bridgecrewio/checkov-action@master
        with:
          directory: .
          framework: terraform
          output_format: json
          output_file_path: checkov-results.json
          
      - name: Upload scan results
        uses: actions/upload-artifact@v3
        with:
          name: security-scan-results
          path: |
            tfsec-results.json
            checkov-results.json
            
      - name: Comment PR
        uses: actions/github-script@v6
        if: github.event_name == 'pull_request'
        with:
          script: |
            const script = require('./scripts/process-scan-results.js')
            await script({github, context})