integrating-sast-into-github-actions-pipeline

Integrating SAST into GitHub Actions Pipeline

When to Use

• When development teams need automated code-level vulnerability detection on every pull request
• When security teams require consistent SAST enforcement across all repositories in an organization
• When migrating from manual or periodic security reviews to continuous security testing
• When compliance frameworks (SOC 2, PCI DSS, NIST SSDF) require evidence of automated code analysis
• When multiple languages coexist in a monorepo and need unified scanning under one workflow

Do not use for runtime vulnerability detection (use DAST instead), for scanning third-party dependencies (use SCA tools like Snyk), or for infrastructure-as-code scanning (use Checkov or tfsec).

Prerequisites

• GitHub repository with GitHub Actions enabled
• GitHub Advanced Security license (required for CodeQL on private repos; free for public repos)
• Semgrep account for managed rules and Semgrep App dashboard (free tier available)
• Repository code in a supported language: Python, JavaScript/TypeScript, Java, C/C++, C#, Go, Ruby, Swift, Kotlin

Workflow

Step 1: Configure CodeQL Analysis Workflow

Create a CodeQL workflow that runs on pull requests and on a weekly schedule to catch vulnerabilities in existing code.

# .github/workflows/codeql-analysis.yml
name: "CodeQL Analysis"

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, develop]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main]
  schedule:
    - cron: '30 2 * * 1'  # Weekly Monday 2:30 AM

jobs:
  analyze:
    name: Analyze (${{ matrix.language }})
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    permissions:
      actions: read
      contents: read
      security-events: write

    strategy:
      fail-fast: false
      matrix:
        language: ['javascript', 'python']

    steps:
      - name: Checkout repository
        uses: actions/checkout@v4

      - name: Initialize CodeQL
        uses: github/codeql-action/init@v3
        with:
          languages: ${{ matrix.language }}
          queries: security-extended,security-and-quality

      - name: Autobuild
        uses: github/codeql-action/autobuild@v3

      - name: Perform CodeQL Analysis
        uses: github/codeql-action/analyze@v3
        with:
          category: "/language:${{ matrix.language }}"