Action policies

Action policies define the workflows that are triggered when the application encounters a given set of criteria (a.k.a. findings).

For example, action policies can be used to:

• Configure the behavior of scan in a CI/CD based environment.
• Set up custom ticketing workflows.
• Set up custom messaging workflows.

Manage action policies

You can view, enable, clone disable, edit, or delete your Endor Labs action policies.

1. Sign in to Endor Labs and select Policies from the left sidebar.
2. Click on the Action Policies tab.
3. Use the search bar to search for a policy.
4. Enable or disable a policy using the toggle.
5. Select Hide Disabled to hide policies that are not enabled.
6. Select Hide Warnings to hide policies that are not blocking or notifications.
7. To delete a policy, click the vertical three dots and select Delete Policy.
8. To edit a policy, click on the vertical three dots and select Edit Policy.

Create an action policy from template

You can create an action policy in Endor Labs to perform a given action when a given set of conditions are met.

1. Sign in to Endor Labs, and select Policies from the left sidebar.

2. Click on the Action Policies tab.

3. Click Create Action Policy to create a new action policy.

4. First, you must Define a Policy. Choose a policy template and define the criteria for the action. For more information, see Action policy templates.

5. Next, Choose an Action to take when the policy criteria are met.

   • Choose Enforce Policy to define the behavior of endorctl scans.

     • A Warn enforcement action will warn the user when the policy criteria are met by letting them know which findings violate the policy. Warn enforcement actions will only notify users of policy violations and will still return a 0 exit code in CI/CD environments, which won’t fail a job. However, it is possible to configure the scan to return a non-zero (129) exit code for policy warnings by setting the --exit-on-policy-warning flag.
     • A Break the Build enforcement action will return a non-zero (128) exit code, which will fail the job. This action will inform the user which findings violate the policy as part of the scan.

   • Choose Send Notification to create a ticket or send a custom message to an integrated notification system.

     1. A Notification Target must be set to send a notification. A notification target may be defined as a notification integration. For more information, see Endor Labs integrations.
     2. Choose an Aggregation Type for notifications. Choose Project to trigger a single notification for all findings, or choose Dependency to trigger multiple notifications for every dependency. For more information, see Aggregation types for notifications.

6. Assign Scope for which this action policy should apply. Scopes are defined by the tags assigned to a project.

   • In Inclusions, enter the tags of the projects that you want to scan.
   • In Exclusions, enter the tags of the projects that you do not want to scan. Exclusions take precedence over the inclusions, in case of a conflict.
   • Click the link to view the projects included in the action policy.

   Note: You can set custom tags for your projects from Projects > Settings > Custom Tags. See also Tagging projects.

7. Name Your Action Policy.

   • Enter a human readable Name for your action policy.
   • Enter a Description for your action policy that describes what it does.
   • Enter any Policy Tags that you want to associate with your policy. Tags can have a maximum of 63 characters and can contain letters, numbers, and characters = @ _ -.

8. Advanced: When you define a policy you do so for the current namespace and all child namespaces. If you do not want the policy to be applied to any child namespaces, click Advanced and deselect Propagate this policy to all child namespaces.

9. Click Create Action Policy. The policy will be enabled by default.

Create an action policy from scratch

Write an action policy from scratch using the OPA Rego policy language.

1. Sign in to Endor Labs, and select Policies from the left sidebar.

2. Click Create Action Policy.

3. Choose From Scratch to author an action policy.

4. Enter the Rego rule for the policy in Rego Definition. For instance, the following Rego rule identifies all repository version findings that are not present in the baseline. Action policies should only operate on Findings. For more information about findings, see the Finding resource kind documentation.

   package examples
   
   match_baseline(finding) {
     some i
     data.baseline.Finding[i].meta.description == finding.meta.description
   }
   
   match_repo_version_finding[result] {
     some i
     data.resources.Finding[i].meta.parent_kind == "RepositoryVersion"
     not match_baseline(data.resources.Finding[i])
   
     result = {
       "Endor": {
         "Finding": data.resources.Finding[i].uuid
       }
     }
   }
   

5. Enter the OPA Query Statement for the rule in the following format: data.<package-name>.<function-name>. For the example above the query statement is data.examples.match_repo_version_finding.

6. Select the Resource Kinds required to evaluate the policy. For the example above the required resource kind is Finding. The requested resource kind records for the current scan are made available to the Rego code under data.resources.<ResourceKind>. The corresponding baseline records are available under data.baseline.<ResourceKind>. Note: Action policies should only operate on Findings.

7. See steps 5-9 above under Create an action policy from template

Expected output format

All action policies must list the matching Finding UUID under “Endor” in the following format.

foo[result] {
  <match conditions>

  result = {
    "Endor": {
      Finding: <finding-uuid>
    }
  }
}

Validate policy

The application verifies the Rego syntax and query statement before creating the policy. However, please note that the logic cannot be fully validated without input data.

See the endorctl validate policy command for details on how to validate a custom policy and inspect the matches returned for a given project.

Aggregation types for notifications

Aggregation types for notifications streamline the organization and management of findings for efficient workflow. By default, all project findings are included in a single notification. With the option to select aggregation types, notifications can be tailored to specific criteria based on dependencies. This customization simplifies developer actions and enhances productivity.

Endor Labs enables you to choose the following notification aggregation types, each offering distinct benefits:

1. Project - (Default) Select Project to create a single notification for all project findings.
2. Dependency - Select Dependency to create separate notifications for each dependency in a project.

Example

For Jira integration notifications, a parent ticket is created with the selected issue type, either Task or Bug. The parent ticket includes the project name. Each identified dependency is grouped under a dedicated sub-ticket. The sub-ticket includes both the project name and dependency name. Findings without any dependency are grouped in a separate sub-ticket. During future scans, the existing sub-ticket status is updated or resolved. If a new dependency is found, a new sub-ticket is created.