Files
infospace-bench/infospaces/patterns-of-it-securita-architecture/artifacts/entities/pattern-policy-as-code-admission.md

77 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown

# Pattern: Policy-as-Code Admission
Status: seed
Readiness target: RL3 production
Primary owners: Railiance platform, NetKingdom
## Problem
Unsafe workloads can enter production when deployment checks depend on
manual review, inconsistent conventions, or late runtime detection.
## Context
Use this pattern for Kubernetes manifests, Helm releases, GitOps
deployments, image admission, network policy, pod security, and tenant
guardrails.
## Forces
- Product teams need self-service deployments.
- Platform teams need enforceable production baselines.
- Policies must be reviewable and testable.
- Emergency exceptions need explicit expiry and audit.
## Solution
Represent deployment and platform safety rules as policy packages that
run before workloads are admitted. Reject or quarantine unsafe manifests
before runtime.
## Implementation Sketch
1. Define baseline policies for pod security, RBAC, image trust,
namespace ownership, labels, resources, and network intent.
2. Run policy checks in CI and admission.
3. Version policy packages through Git review.
4. Support exceptions with owner, reason, expiry, and risk acceptance.
5. Emit policy decision events to the audit ledger.
## Failure Modes
| Failure | Mitigation |
| --- | --- |
| Policies only run in CI | enforce at admission too |
| Exceptions never expire | require expiry and review |
| Policy language is opaque to teams | publish examples and test fixtures |
| Admission outage blocks recovery | document break-glass admission process |
## Related Capabilities
- Platform and Kubernetes hardening.
- Security governance and production readiness.
- Software supply chain security.
- Observability, detection, and audit.
## Maturity
Seed. The pattern is a baseline candidate, but tool choice and policy
package lifecycle need implementation work.
## Verification
- Unsafe manifests are rejected before runtime.
- Policy packages have tests and change review.
- Exceptions are time bounded and visible.
- Admission decisions are logged.
## Research Basis
Seeded by policy-as-code admission control, pod security
baseline/restricted, signed image admission, and GitOps with guardrails.
## References
- Initial exploration: Kubernetes and platform patterns.
- Initial exploration: Platform and Kubernetes hardening.