Planning Your SAST Implementation

Successful SAST implementation begins with thorough planning that considers technical, cultural, and operational factors. Start by identifying champion applications—projects with engaged teams willing to pilot new security practices. These applications should represent your technology stack but shouldn't be so critical that false positives or performance impacts cause major disruption. Success with champion applications builds momentum for broader rollout.

Define clear objectives and success metrics before implementation. Are you primarily focused on preventing vulnerabilities in new code or remediating technical debt in existing applications? Do you need to demonstrate compliance or actually improve security posture? Metrics might include vulnerability density reduction, mean time to remediation, or developer satisfaction scores. Clear objectives guide implementation decisions and demonstrate value to stakeholders.

Assess your current development pipeline to identify optimal integration points. Modern pipelines offer multiple opportunities: IDE integration for immediate feedback, pre-commit hooks for early prevention, pull request analysis for code review integration, and build-time scanning for comprehensive coverage. Each integration point serves different purposes and requires specific configuration. Map your pipeline stages to understand where SAST provides maximum value with minimum disruption.