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GitHub Advanced Security step configuration



The GitHub Advanced Security (GHAS) step in Harness STO enables you to scan your code repositories from the following GHAS products:

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GitHub Advanced Security step settings​

The recommended workflow is to add a GitHub Advanced Security step to a Security or Build stage and configure it as described below.

Scan​

Scan Mode​

  • Orchestration: Executes the scan, normalizes, and deduplicates results. Supported for CodeQL and Dependabot.

    note
    • To comply with GitHub’s licensing requirements, orchestration scans are uploaded to GitHub and then imported into STO.
    • Orchestration mode currently supports Python (pip) and JavaScript/TypeScript (npm or yarn). Extraction mode supports all languages available in GHAS.

  • Extraction: Pulls existing results from GitHub APIs (CodeQL, Dependabot, Secret Scanning).

  • Ingestion: Ingests SARIF files from previously run GHAS scans.

Scan Configuration​

The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.

The GitHub Advanced Security step supports the following configurations:

CodeQL​

You can use CodeQL to perform Static Application Security Testing (SAST). For details about CodeQL itself, see the CodeQL documentation.

Here are a few important points to note when using CodeQL with Orchestration mode:

  • The repository must be configured with Advanced setup for CodeQL analysis. To do this, go to your repository settings, click on Advanced Security, then go to Code scanning section and select Advanced setup for CodeQL analysis. If you're using default setup, you must switch to Advanced setup before running scans with Orchestration scan mode.

For Extraction mode, CodeQL works with both Default and Advanced setup.

Dependabot​

You can use Dependabot for dependency (SCA) scans. For more information, see the Dependabot documentation.

Prerequisites for Dependabot scans:

  • Dependabot alerts must be enabled. To check this, go to your repository settings, select Advanced Security, then click on Enable for Dependabot alerts.
  • Dependabot with Orchestration mode requires a Docker-in-Docker (DinD) background step. When you configure this step, set the Entrypoint to dockerd-entrypoint.sh instead of dockerd. For setup instructions, go to Configure Docker-in-Docker (DinD) for your pipeline.

Secret Scanning​

You can use Secret Scanning to detect exposed secrets such as API keys, tokens, or other sensitive values in your repositories. For more details about this feature, see the Secret Scanning documentation.

Prerequisites for Secret Scanning:

  • Secret protection must be enabled. To enable this, go to your repository settings, click on Advanced Security, then click on Enable for Secret Protection.

Target​

Type​

  • Repository Scan a codebase repo.

    In most cases, you specify the codebase using a code repo connector that connects to the Git account or repository where your code is stored. For information, go to Configure codebase.

Name​

The identifier for the target, such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice. Descriptive target names make it much easier to navigate your scan data in the STO UI.

It is good practice to specify a baseline for every target.

Variant​

The identifier for the specific variant to scan. This is usually the branch name, image tag, or product version. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

Workspace​

The workspace path on the pod running the scan step. The workspace path is /harness by default.

You can override this if you want to scan only a subset of the workspace. For example, suppose the pipeline publishes artifacts to a subfolder /tmp/artifacts and you want to scan these artifacts only. In this case, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/artifacts.

Additionally, you can specify individual files to scan as well. For instance, if you only want to scan a specific file like /tmp/iac/infra.tf, you can specify the workspace path as /harness/tmp/iac/infra.tf

Ingestion File​

The path to your scan results when running an Ingestion scan, for example /shared/scan_results/myscan.latest.sarif.

  • The data file must be in a supported format for the scanner.

  • The data file must be accessible to the scan step. It's good practice to save your results files to a shared path in your stage. In the visual editor, go to the stage where you're running the scan. Then go to Overview > Shared Paths. You can also add the path to the YAML stage definition like this:

        - stage:
          spec:
            sharedPaths:
              - /shared/scan_results

Authentication​

Access Token​

The access token to log in to the scanner. This is usually a password or an API key.

You should create a Harness text secret with your encrypted token and reference the secret using the format <+secrets.getValue("my-access-token")>. For more information, go to Add and Reference Text Secrets.

Use a GitHub fine-grained Personal Access Token (PAT) with the following repository permissions:

Scan ModePermissionLevel
Orchestration (CodeQL, Dependabot)Code scanning alertsRead & Write
Dependabot alertsRead & Write
Secret scanning alertsRead & Write
Extraction (CodeQL, Dependabot, Secret Scanning)Code scanning alertsRead-only
Dependabot alertsRead-only
Secret scanning alertsRead-only

Make sure Repository access is set to All repositories or Only selected repositories.

Log Level​

The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:

  • DEBUG
  • INFO
  • WARNING
  • ERROR

Fail on Severity​

Every STO scan step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:

  • CRITICAL
  • HIGH
  • MEDIUM
  • LOW
  • INFO
  • NONE — Do not fail on severity

The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none

Additional Configuration​

The fields under Additional Configuration vary based on the type of infrastructure. Depending on the infrastructure type selected, some fields may or may not appear in your settings. Below are the details for each field

Advanced Settings​

In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:

Proxy settings​

This step supports Harness Secure Connect if you're using Harness Cloud infrastructure. During the Secure Connect setup, the HTTPS_PROXY and HTTP_PROXY variables are automatically configured to route traffic through the secure tunnel. If there are specific addresses that you want to bypass the Secure Connect proxy, you can define those in the NO_PROXY variable. This can be configured in the Settings of your step.

If you need to configure a different proxy (not using Secure Connect), you can manually set the HTTPS_PROXY, HTTP_PROXY, and NO_PROXY variables in the Settings of your step.

Definitions of Proxy variables:​

  • HTTPS_PROXY: Specify the proxy server for HTTPS requests, example https://sc.internal.harness.io:30000
  • HTTP_PROXY: Specify the proxy server for HTTP requests, example http://sc.internal.harness.io:30000
  • NO_PROXY: Specify the domains as comma-separated values that should bypass the proxy. This allows you to exclude certain traffic from being routed through the proxy.