[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":791},["ShallowReactive",2],{"/en-us/blog/a-developers-guide-to-building-an-ai-security-governance-framework":3,"navigation-en-us":41,"banner-en-us":440,"footer-en-us":450,"blog-post-authors-en-us-Ayoub Fandi":690,"blog-related-posts-en-us-a-developers-guide-to-building-an-ai-security-governance-framework":704,"assessment-promotions-en-us":743,"next-steps-en-us":781},{"id":4,"title":5,"authorSlugs":6,"body":8,"categorySlug":9,"config":10,"content":14,"description":8,"extension":27,"isFeatured":12,"meta":28,"navigation":12,"path":29,"publishedDate":20,"seo":30,"stem":35,"tagSlugs":36,"__hash__":40},"blogPosts/en-us/blog/a-developers-guide-to-building-an-ai-security-governance-framework.yml","A Developers Guide To Building An Ai Security Governance Framework",[7],"ayoub-fandi",null,"ai-ml",{"slug":11,"featured":12,"template":13},"a-developers-guide-to-building-an-ai-security-governance-framework",true,"BlogPost",{"title":15,"description":16,"authors":17,"heroImage":19,"date":20,"body":21,"category":9,"tags":22},"A developer's guide to building an AI security governance framework","Learn the strategies and practices to adopt for secure and responsible development and use of AI.",[18],"Ayoub Fandi","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1749664638/Blog/Hero%20Images/applicationsecurity.png","2024-04-23","Artificial Intelligence (AI) has firmly established itself as a pillar of digital transformation, disrupting industries, increasing efficiency, and providing unmatched access to large data sets. AI also raises profound questions regarding security governance. How do I ensure I can leverage the best of what AI has to offer while mitigating its potential security risks? As [AI continues to advance](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/devops/the-role-of-ai-in-devops/), there is a growing need for strong oversight and accountability. This article delves into the complex landscape of AI security governance, exploring various frameworks, strategies, and practices that organizations like GitLab are adopting to ensure the responsible development of AI technologies and features.\n\n## Greater scrutiny on AI\n\n### AI: Single term, numerous realities\nAI isn't a monolithic entity - it encompasses a spectrum of technologies and applications. From machine learning algorithms that power recommendation systems to advanced natural language processing models like Anthropic’s Claude 3, each AI system brings its unique set of opportunities and challenges.\n\nAccording to [a 2023 MITRE report](https://www.mitre.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/PR-23-1943-A-Sensible-Regulatory-Framework-For-AI-Security_0.pdf), three main areas of AI currently exist:\n\n1. **AI as a subsystem**\n\n\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\u003Ci>\"AI is embedded in many software systems. Discrete AI models routinely perform machine perception and optimization functions, from face recognition in photos uploaded to the cloud, to dynamically allocating and optimizing network resources in 5G wireless networks.\n  \u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\"There are a wide range of vulnerabilities and threats against these types of AI subsystems – from data poisoning attacks to adversarial input attacks – that can be used to manipulate subsystems.\"\u003C/i>\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\n2. **AI as human augmentation**\n\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\u003Ci>\"Another application of AI is in augmenting human performance, allowing a person to operate with much larger scope and scale. This has wide-ranging implications for workforce planning as AI has the potential to increase productivity and shift the composition of labor markets, similar to the role of automation in the manufacturing industry. \n  \u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\"While sophisticated hackers and military information operations can already generate believable content today using techniques such as computer-generated imagery, LLMs will make that capability available to anyone, while increasing the scope and scale at which the professionals can operate.\"\u003C/i>\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\n3. **AI with agency**\n\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\u003Ci>\"A segment of the tech community is increasingly concerned about scenarios where sophisticated AI could operate as an independent, goal-seeking agent. While science fiction historically embodied this AI in anthropomorphic robots, the AI we have today is principally confined to digital and virtual domains.\n\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\"One scenario is an AI model given a specific adversarial agenda. Stuxnet is perhaps an early example of sophisticated, AI-fueled, goal-seeking malware with an arsenal of zero-day attacks that ended up escaping onto the internet.\"\u003C/i>\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\nYou can focus your efforts in terms of security governance based on which areas your company is looking to adopt and the expected business benefits.\u003Cp>\u003C/p>\n\n### Frameworks for AI security governance\nFor effective AI security governance, we must navigate the complex landscape of guidelines and principles developed by various organizations.\n\nGovernments, international organizations, and tech companies have all played their part in shaping AI security governance frameworks. You can review the frameworks below and choose those that are relevant and/or apply to your organization:\n\n- [NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF)](https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ai/NIST.AI.100-1.pdf)\n- [Google’s Security Artificial Intelligence Framework](https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/google_secure_ai_framework_approach.pdf)\n- [OWASP Top 10 for LLMs](https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-for-large-language-model-applications/assets/PDF/OWASP-Top-10-for-LLMs-2023-v1_0.pdf)\n- [The UK’s NCSC Principles for the Security of Machine Learning](https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/files/Principles-for-the-security-of-machine-learning.pdf)\n\nWhile these frameworks provide valuable guidance, they also introduce complexity. Organizations must determine which apply to their AI usage and how they align to their practices. Moreover, the dynamic nature of AI requires continuous adaptation to stay secure.\n\nSomething to note is that if you read through these frameworks, you’ll notice that numerous controls overlap with standard security best practices. This isn’t a coincidence. A strong overall security program is a prerequisite for proper AI security governance.\n\n## How-to: AI security governance\n### The why and the what\nAI security governance starts with understanding what AI technologies your organization is using or developing, why you are using them, and where these technologies fit into your operations. It's essential to define clear objectives and identify potential security risks associated with AI deployment. This introspection lays the foundation for effective AI security governance.\n\n#### The why\n\nUnderstanding the \"why\" behind each AI application is pivotal to build effective security governance. Each AI system deployed has to serve a specific purpose. Is AI being utilized to enhance customer experiences, automate manual tasks, or support the decision-making process? \n\nBy uncovering the motivations driving AI initiatives, organizations can align these projects with their broader business objectives. This alignment ensures that AI investments are strategically focused, delivering value in line with organizational goals. It also aids in prioritizing AI systems that have a more significant impact on the core mission of the company.\n\n#### The what\nIn the realm of AI security governance, the foundational step is conducting a comprehensive inventory of all AI systems, algorithms, and data sources within your organization. This includes meticulously cataloging all AI technologies in use, ranging from machine learning models and natural language processing algorithms to computer vision systems. This would also involve identifying the data sources feeding these AI systems, and their origins (internal databases, customer interactions, or third-party data providers). Such an inventory provides three main benefits: \n- to gain a holistic understanding of the AI ecosystem within the organization \n- to establish a strong basis for monitoring, auditing, and managing these assets effectively\n- to focus security efforts on the high-risk/critical areas\n\n### How to develop a security risk management program\nA robust security risk management program is at the core of responsible AI security governance. The critical building blocks for this program are the what and the why we discussed earlier. \n\nSpecificities of AI make security risk management more complex. In the NIST AI RMF mentioned earlier, numerous challenges are highlighted, including:\n\n- Difficult to measure AI-related security risks\n    - Potential security risks could emerge from the AI model, the software on which you are training the model, or the data ingested by the model. Different stages of the AI lifecycle might also trigger specific security risks depending on which actors (producers, developers, or consumers) are leveraging the AI solution.\n- Risk tolerance threshold might be complex to determine \n    - As the potential security risks aren’t easily identifiable, determining the risk tolerance your organization can withstand regarding AI can be a very empirical exercise.\n- Not considering AI in isolation \n    - Security governance of AI systems should be part of your security risk management strategy. Different users might have different parts of the overall picture. Ensuring you have complete information and full visibility into the AI lifecycle is critical to making the best decisions.\n\nSecurity risk management should be an ongoing process, adapting to the quickly evolving AI landscape. Reassessing the program, reviewing assumptions regarding the environment and involving additional business stakeholders are activities that should be happening on a regular basis.\n\n## AI security governance and the GitLab DevSecOps platform\n### Using AI to power DevSecOps \nLet’s take [GitLab Duo](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/), our suite of AI capabilities to help power DevSecOps workflows, as an example. [GitLab Duo Code Suggestions](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/code-suggestions/) helps developers write code more efficiently by using generative AI to assist in software engineering tasks. It works either through code completion or through code generation using natural language code comment blocks.\n\nTo ensure it can be fully leveraged, security needs of potential users and customers have to be considered. As an example, data used to produce Code Suggestions is immediately discarded by the AI models. \n\nAll of GitLab’s AI providers are subject to contractual terms with GitLab that prohibit the use of customer content for the provider’s own purposes, except to perform their independent legal obligations. [GitLab’s own privacy policy](https://about.gitlab.com/privacy/) prevents us from using customer data to train models without customer consent. \n\nOf course, to fully benefit from Code Suggestions, you should:\n- understand and review all suggestions to see if they align with your development guidelines\n- limit providing sensitive information or proprietary code in prompts \nensure the suggestion follows the same secure coding guidelines your company has\n- review the code using automated scanning for vulnerable dependencies, input validation and output sanitization, as well as license checks\n\n### Securing AI\nManaging the output of AI systems is equally important as managing the input. Security scanning tools can help identify vulnerabilities and potential threats in AI-generated code. \n\nManaging AI output requires a systematic approach to code review and validation. Organizations should [integrate security scanning tools into their CI/CD pipelines](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/application_security/), ensuring that AI-generated code is checked for security vulnerabilities before deployment. Automated security checks can help detect vulnerabilities early in the development process, reducing the risk of potential vulnerable code stemming from suggested code blocks being merged.\n\nFor any GitLab Duo generated code, changes are managed via merge requests which trigger your CI pipeline (including any security and code quality scanning you have configured). This ensures any governance rules you have set up for your merge requests like required approvals are enforced.\n\nAI systems are systems. Existing security controls apply to AI systems the same way they would apply to the rest of your environment. Common security controls around application security still apply, including [security reviews](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/project/merge_requests/reviews/data_usage.html), security scanning, [threat modeling](https://danielmiessler.com/p/athi-an-ai-threat-modeling-framework-for-policymakers), encryption, etc. The [Google Secure AI Framework](https://services.google.com/fh/files/blogs/google_secure_ai_framework_approach.pdf) highlights these six elements:\n- expand strong security foundations to the AI ecosystem\n- extend detection and response to bring AI into an organization’s threat universe\n- automate defenses to keep pace with existing and new threats\n- harmonize platform-level controls to ensure consistent security across the organization\n- adapt controls to adjust mitigations and create faster feedback loops for AI deployment\n- contextualize AI system risks in surrounding business processes\n\nIf you have a strong security program, managing AI will be an extension of your current program and account for specific risks and vulnerabilities.\n\n## How GitLab Duo is secured\nGitLab recognizes the significance of security in AI governance. Our very strong security program is focused on ensuring our customers can fully leverage [GitLab Duo](https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/ai_features.html) in a secure manner. This is how the security departments are collaborating to secure GitLab’s AI features GitLab:\n- **Security Assurance:** Seeks to address our compliance requirements regarding security, that AI security risks are identified and properly managed, and that our customers understand how we secure our application, infrastructure, and services.\n\n- **Security Operations:** Monitors our infrastructure and quickly responds to threats using a team of skilled engineers as well as automation capabilities, helping to ensure AI features aren’t abused or used in a malevolent manner.\n\n- **Product Security:** Helps the product and engineering teams by providing security expertise for our AI features and helping to secure the underlying infrastructure on which our product is hosted.\n\n- **Corporate Security and IT Operations:** Finds potential vulnerabilities in our product to proactively mitigate and support other departments by performing research on relevant security areas.\n\nOur Security team works closely with GitLab's Legal and Corporate Affairs team to ensure our framework for AI security governance is comprehensive. The recent launch of the [GitLab AI Transparency Center](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/introducing-the-gitlab-ai-transparency-center/) showcases our commitment to implementing a strong AI governance. We published our AI ethics principles as well as our AI continuity plan to demonstrate our AI resiliency.\n\n## Learn more\nAI security governance is a complex area, especially as the field is in a nascent form. As AI continues to support our workflows and accelerate our processes, responsible AI security governance becomes a key pillar of any security program. By understanding the nuances of AI, enhancing your risk management program, and using AI features that are developed responsibly, you can ensure that AI-powered workflows follow the principles of security, privacy, and trust. \n\n>  Learn more about [GitLab Duo AI features](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/).\n",[23,24,25,26],"AI/ML","DevSecOps","security","public 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AI prompts to speed your team’s software delivery","Eliminate review backlogs, security delays, and coordination overhead with ready-to-use AI prompts covering every stage of the software lifecycle.",[710],"Chandler Gibbons","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772632341/duj8vaznbhtyxxhodb17.png","2026-03-04","AI-assisted coding tools are helping developers generate code faster than ever. So why aren’t teams _shipping_ faster?\n\nBecause coding is only 20% of the software delivery lifecycle, the remaining 80% becomes the bottleneck: code review backlogs grow, security scanning can’t keep pace, documentation falls behind, and manual coordination overhead increases.\n\nThe good news is that the same AI capabilities that accelerate individual coding can eliminate these team-level delays. You just need to apply AI across your entire software lifecycle, not only during the coding phase.\n\nBelow are 10 ready-to-use prompts from the [GitLab Duo Agent Platform Prompt Library](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/prompt-library/) that help teams overcome common obstacles to faster software delivery. Each prompt addresses a specific slowdown that emerges when individual productivity increases without corresponding improvements in team processes.\n\n## How do you move code review from bottleneck to accelerator?\nDevelopers generate merge requests faster with AI assistance, but human reviewers can quickly become overwhelmed as code review cycles stretch from hours to days. AI can handle routine review tasks, freeing reviewers to focus on architecture and business logic instead of catching basic logical errors and API contract violations.\n\n### Review MR for logical errors\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Code Review\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n\n```text\nReview this MR for logical errors, edge cases, and potential bugs: [MR URL or paste code]\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Automated linters catch syntax issues, but logical errors require understanding intent. This prompt catches bugs before human reviewers even look at the code, reducing review cycles from multiple rounds to often just one approval.\n\n### Identify breaking changes in MR\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Code Review\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n\n```text\nDoes this MR introduce any breaking changes?\n\nChanges:\n[PASTE CODE DIFF]\n\nCheck for:\n1. API signature changes\n2. Removed or renamed public methods\n3. Changed return types\n4. Modified database schemas\n5. Breaking configuration changes\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Breaking changes discovered during deployment can cause rollbacks and incidents. This prompt shifts that discovery left to the MR stage, when fixes are faster and less expensive.\n\n## How can you shift security left without slowing down?\nSecurity scans generate hundreds of findings. Security teams manually triage each one while developers wait for approval to deploy. Most findings are false positives or low-risk issues, but identifying the real threats requires expertise and time. AI can prioritize findings by actual exploitability and auto-remediate common vulnerabilities, allowing security teams to focus on the threats that matter.\n\n### Analyze security scan results\n**Complexity**: Intermediate\n\n**Category**: Security\n\n**Agent**: Duo Security Analyst\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n\n```text\n@security_analyst Analyze these security scan results:\n\n[PASTE SCAN OUTPUT]\n\nFor each finding:\n1. Assess real risk vs false positive\n2. Explain the vulnerability\n3. Suggest remediation\n4. Prioritize by severity\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Most security scan findings are false positives or low-risk issues. This prompt helps security teams focus on the findings that actually matter, reducing remediation time from weeks to days.\n\n### Review code for security issues\n**Complexity**: Intermediate\n\n**Category**: Security\n\n**Agent**: Duo Security Analyst\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\n@security_analyst Review this code for security issues:\n\n[PASTE CODE]\n\nCheck for:\n1. Injection vulnerabilities\n2. Authentication/authorization flaws\n3. Data exposure risks\n4. Insecure dependencies\n5. Cryptographic issues\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Traditional security reviews happen after code is written. This prompt enables developers to find and fix security issues before creating an MR, eliminating the back and forth that delays deployments.\n\n## How do you keep documentation current as code changes?\nCode changes faster than documentation. Onboarding new developers takes weeks because docs are outdated or missing. Teams know documentation is important, but it always gets deferred when deadlines approach. Automating documentation generation and updates as part of your standard workflow ensures docs stay current without adding manual work.\n\n### Generate release notes from MRs\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Documentation\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\nGenerate release notes for these merged MRs:\n[LIST MR URLs or paste titles]\n\nGroup by:\n1. New features\n2. Bug fixes\n3. Performance improvements\n4. Breaking changes\n5. Deprecations\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Manual release note compilation takes hours and often includes errors or omissions. Automated generation ensures every release has comprehensive notes without adding work to your release process.\n\n### Update documentation after code changes\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Documentation\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\nI changed this code:\n\n[PASTE CODE CHANGES]\n\nWhat documentation needs updating? Check:\n1. README files\n2. API documentation\n3. Architecture diagrams\n4. Onboarding guides\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Documentation drift happens because teams forget which docs need updates after code changes. This prompt makes documentation maintenance part of your development workflow, not a separate task that gets deferred.\n\n## How do you break down planning complexity?\nLarge features get stuck in planning. Teams spend weeks in meetings trying to scope work and identify dependencies. The complexity feels overwhelming, and it's hard to know where to start. AI can systematically decompose complex work into concrete, implementable tasks with clear dependencies and acceptance criteria, transforming weeks of planning into focused implementation.\n\n### Break down epic into issues\n**Complexity**: Intermediate\n\n**Category**: Documentation\n\n**Agent**: Duo Planner\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\nBreak down this epic into implementable issues:\n\n[EPIC DESCRIPTION]\n\nConsider:\n1. Technical dependencies\n2. Reasonable issue sizes\n3. Clear acceptance criteria\n4. Logical implementation order\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: This prompt transforms a week of planning meetings into 30 minutes of AI-assisted decomposition followed by team review. Teams start implementation sooner with clearer direction.\n\n## How can you expand test coverage without expanding effort?\nDevelopers are writing code faster, but if testing doesn't keep pace, test coverage decreases and bugs slip through. Writing comprehensive tests manually is time-consuming, and developers often miss edge cases under deadline pressure. Generating tests automatically means developers can review and refine rather than write from scratch, maintaining quality without sacrificing velocity.\n\n### Generate unit tests\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Testing\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\nGenerate unit tests for this function:\n\n[PASTE FUNCTION]\n\nInclude tests for:\n1. Happy path\n2. Edge cases\n3. Error conditions\n4. Boundary values\n5. Invalid inputs\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: Writing tests manually is time consuming, and developers often miss edge cases. This prompt generates thorough test suites in seconds, which developers can review and adjust rather than write from scratch.\n\n### Review test coverage gaps\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Testing\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\nAnalyze test coverage for [MODULE/COMPONENT]:\n\nCurrent coverage: [PERCENTAGE]\n\nIdentify:\n1. Untested functions/methods\n2. Uncovered edge cases\n3. Missing error scenario tests\n4. Integration points without tests\n5. Priority areas to test next\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: This prompt reveals blind spots in your test suite before they cause production incidents. Teams can systematically improve coverage where it matters most.\n\n## How do you reduce mean time to resolution when debugging?\nProduction incidents take hours to diagnose. Developers wade through logs and stack traces while customers experience downtime. Every minute of debugging is a minute of lost productivity and potential revenue. AI can accelerate root cause analysis by parsing complex error messages and suggesting specific fixes, cutting diagnostic time from hours to minutes.\n\n### Debug failing pipeline\n**Complexity**: Beginner\n\n**Category**: Debugging\n\n**Prompt from library**:\n\n```text\nThis pipeline is failing:\n\nJob: [JOB NAME]\nStage: [STAGE]\nError: [PASTE ERROR MESSAGE/LOG]\n\nHelp me:\n1. Identify the root cause\n2. Suggest a fix\n3. Explain why it started failing\n4. Prevent similar issues\n```\n\n**Why it helps**: CI/CD failures block entire teams. This prompt diagnoses failures in seconds instead of the 15-30 minutes developers typically spend investigating, keeping deployment velocity high.\n\n## Moving from individual gains to team acceleration\nThese prompts represent a shift in how teams apply AI to software delivery. Rather than focusing solely on individual developer productivity, they address the coordination, quality, and knowledge-sharing challenges that actually constrain team velocity.\n\nThe [complete prompt library](https://about.gitlab.com/gitlab-duo/prompt-library/) contains more than 100 prompts across all stages of the software lifecycle: planning, development, security, testing, deployment, and operations. Each prompt is tagged by complexity level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced) and categorized by use case, making it easy to find the right starting point for your team.\n\nStart with prompts tagged “Beginner” that address your team’s most pressing obstacles. As your team builds confidence, explore intermediate and advanced prompts that enable more sophisticated workflows. The goal is not just faster coding — it's faster, safer, higher-quality software delivery from planning through production.",[23,715],"DevOps platform",{"featured":31,"template":13,"slug":717},"10-ai-prompts-to-speed-your-teams-software-delivery",{"content":719,"config":728},{"title":720,"description":721,"heroImage":722,"authors":723,"date":725,"body":726,"category":9,"tags":727},"AI can detect vulnerabilities, but who governs risk?","AI-assisted vulnerability detection is developing fast, but the harder challenges of enforcement, governance, and supply chain security require a holistic platform.","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772195014/ooezwusxjl1f7ijfmbvj.png",[724],"Omer Azaria","2026-02-27","Anthropic recently announced Claude Code Security, an AI system that detects vulnerabilities and proposes fixes. The market reacted immediately, with security stocks dipping as investors questioned whether AI might replace traditional AppSec tools. The question on everyone's mind: If AI can write code and secure it, is application security about to become obsolete?\n\nIf security only meant scanning code, the answer might be yes. But enterprise security has never been about detection alone.\n\nOrganizations are not asking whether AI can find vulnerabilities. They are asking three much harder questions: \n\n* Is what we are about to ship safe?  \n* Has our risk posture changed as environments evolve and dependencies, third-party services, tools, and infrastructure continuously shift?  \n* How do we govern a codebase that is increasingly assembled by AI and third-party sources, and that we are still accountable for? \n\nThose questions require a platform answer: Detection surfaces risk, but governance determines what happens next. \n\n[GitLab](https://about.gitlab.com/) is the orchestration layer built to govern the software lifecycle end-to-end. It gives teams the enforcement, visibility, and auditability they need to keep pace with the speed of AI-assisted development.\n\n## Trusting AI requires governing risk\n\nAI systems are rapidly getting better at identifying vulnerabilities and suggesting fixes. This is a meaningful and welcome advancement, but analysis is not accountability.\n\nAI cannot enforce company policy or define acceptable risk on its own. Humans must set the boundaries, policies, and guardrails that agents operate within, establishing separation of duties, ensuring audit trails, and maintaining consistent controls across thousands of repositories and teams. Trust in agents comes not from autonomy alone, but from clearly defined governance set by people. \n\nIn an [agentic world](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/agentic-ai/), where software is increasingly written and modified by autonomous systems, governance becomes more important, not less. The more autonomy organizations grant to AI, the stronger the governance must be.\n\nGovernance is not friction. It is the foundation that makes AI-assisted development trustworthy at scale.\n\n## LLMs see code, but platforms see context\n\nA large language model ([LLM](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/what-is-a-large-language-model-llm/)) evaluates code in isolation. An enterprise application security platform understands context. This difference matters because risk decisions are contextual:\n\n* Who authored the change?  \n* How critical is the application to the business?  \n* How does it interact with infrastructure and dependencies?  \n* Does the vulnerability exist in code that is actually reachable in production, or is it buried in a dependency that never executes?  \n* Is it actually exploitable in production, given how the application runs, its APIs, and the environment around it?\n\nSecurity decisions depend on this context. Without it, detection produces noisy alerts that slow down development rather than reducing risk. With it, organizations can triage quickly and manage risk effectively. Context evolves continuously as software changes, which means governance cannot be a one-time decision. \n\n## Static scans can’t keep up with dynamic risk\n\nSoftware risk is dynamic. Dependencies change, environments evolve, and systems interact in ways no single analysis can fully predict. A clean scan at one moment does not guarantee safety at release.\n\nEnterprise security depends on continuous assurance: controls embedded directly into development workflows that evaluate risk as software is built, tested, and deployed.\n\nDetection provides insight. Governance provides trust. Continuous governance is what allows organizations to ship safely at scale.\n\n## Governing the agentic future\n\nAI is reshaping how software is created. The question is no longer whether teams will use AI, but how safely they can scale it.\n\nSoftware today is assembled as much as it is written, from AI-generated code, open-source libraries, and third-party dependencies that span thousands of projects. Governing what ships across all of those sources is the hardest and most consequential part of application security, and it is the part that no developer-side tool is built to address. \n\nAs an intelligent orchestration platform, GitLab is built to address this problem. GitLab Ultimate embeds governance, policy enforcement, security scanning, and auditability directly into the workflows where software is planned, built, and shipped, so security teams can govern at the speed of AI. \n\nAI will accelerate development dramatically. The organizations that benefit most from AI will not be those with the smartest assistants alone, but those that build trust through strong governance.\n\n> To learn how GitLab helps organizations [govern and ship AI-generated code](https://about.gitlab.com/solutions/software-compliance/?utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=eg_global_x_x_security_en_) safely, [talk to our team today](https://about.gitlab.com/sales/?utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=eg_global_x_x_security_en_)\n\n\n ## Related reading\n\n - [Integrating AI with DevOps for enhanced security](https://about.gitlab.com/topics/devops/ai-enhanced-security/)\n - [The GitLab AI Security Framework for security leaders](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/the-gitlab-ai-security-framework-for-security-leaders/)\n - [Improve AI security in GitLab with composite identities](https://about.gitlab.com/blog/improve-ai-security-in-gitlab-with-composite-identities/)",[23,25],{"featured":12,"template":13,"slug":729},"ai-can-detect-vulnerabilities-but-who-governs-risk",{"content":731,"config":741},{"title":732,"description":733,"authors":734,"category":9,"tags":736,"date":738,"heroImage":739,"body":740},"Secure and fast deployments to Google Agent Engine with GitLab","Follow this step-by-step guide to build an AI agent with Google's Agent Development Kit and deploy to Agent Engine using GitLab.",[735],"Regnard Raquedan",[23,737,110,24],"google","2026-02-26","https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772111172/mwhgbjawn62kymfwrhle.png","In this tutorial, you'll learn how to deploy an AI agent built with Google's Agent Development Kit ([ADK](https://google.github.io/adk-docs/)) to [Agent Engine](https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai/generative-ai/docs/agent-engine/overview) using GitLab's native Google Cloud integration and CI/CD pipelines. We'll cover IAM configuration, pipeline setup, and testing your deployed agent.\n\n## What is Agent Engine and why does it matter?\n\nAgent Engine is Google Cloud's managed runtime specifically designed for AI agents. Think of it as the production home for your agents — where they live, run, and scale without you having to manage the underlying infrastructure. Agent Engine handles infrastructure, scaling, session management, and memory storage so you can focus on building your agent — not managing servers. It also integrates natively with Google Cloud's logging, monitoring, and IAM.\n\n## Why use GitLab to deploy to Agent Engine?\n\nAI agent deployment is typically difficult to configure correctly. Security considerations, CI/CD orchestration, and cloud permissions create friction that slows down development cycles.\n\nGitLab streamlines this entire process while enhancing security:\n\n- **Built-in security scanning** — Every deployment is automatically scanned for vulnerabilities without additional configuration.\n- **Native Google Cloud integration** — Workload Identity Federation eliminates the need for service account keys.\n- **Simplified CI/CD** — GitLab's templates handle complex deployment logic.\n\n## Prerequisites\n\nBefore you begin, ensure you have:\n\n- A Google Cloud project with the following APIs enabled:\n  - Cloud Storage API\n  - Vertex AI API\n- A GitLab project for your source code and CI/CD pipeline\n- A Google Cloud Storage bucket for staging deployments\n- Google Cloud IAM integration configured in GitLab (see Step 1)\n\nHere are the steps to follow.\n\n## 1. Configure IAM integration\n\nThe foundation of secure deployment is proper IAM configuration between GitLab and Google Cloud using Workload Identity Federation.\n\nIn your GitLab project:\n\n1. Navigate to **Settings > Integrations**.\n2. Locate the **Google Cloud IAM** integration.\n3. Provide the following information:\n   - **Project ID**: Your Google Cloud project ID\n   - **Project Number**: Found in your Google Cloud console\n   - **Workload Identity Pool ID**: A unique identifier for your identity pool\n   - **Provider ID**: A unique identifier for your identity provider\n\nGitLab generates a script for you. Copy and run this script in Google Cloud Shell to establish the Workload Identity Federation between platforms.\n\n**Important:** Add these additional roles to your service principal for Agent Engine deployment:\n\n- `roles/aiplatform.user`\n- `roles/storage.objectAdmin`\n\nYou can add these roles using gcloud commands:\n\n```bash\nGCP_PROJECT_ID=\"\u003Cyour-project-id>\"\nGCP_PROJECT_NUMBER=\"\u003Cyour-project-number>\"\nGCP_WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_POOL=\"\u003Cyour-pool-id>\"\n\ngcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${GCP_PROJECT_ID} \\\n  --member=\"principalSet://iam.googleapis.com/projects/${GCP_PROJECT_NUMBER}/locations/global/workloadIdentityPools/${GCP_WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_POOL}/attribute.developer_access/true\" \\\n  --role='roles/aiplatform.user'\n\ngcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding ${GCP_PROJECT_ID} \\\n  --member=\"principalSet://iam.googleapis.com/projects/${GCP_PROJECT_NUMBER}/locations/global/workloadIdentityPools/${GCP_WORKLOAD_IDENTITY_POOL}/attribute.developer_access/true\" \\\n  --role='roles/storage.objectAdmin'\n```\n\n## 2. Create the CI/CD pipeline\n\nNow for the core of the deployment — the CI/CD pipeline. Create a `.gitlab-ci.yml` file in your project root:\n\n```yaml\nstages:\n  - test\n  - deploy\n\ncache:\n  paths:\n    - .cache/pip\n  key: ${CI_COMMIT_REF_SLUG}\n\nvariables:\n  GCP_PROJECT_ID: \"\u003Cyour-project-id>\"\n  GCP_REGION: \"us-central1\"\n  STORAGE_BUCKET: \"\u003Cyour-staging-bucket>\"\n  AGENT_NAME: \"Canada City Advisor\"\n  AGENT_ENTRY: \"canada_city_advisor\"\n\nimage: google/cloud-sdk:slim\n\n# Security scanning templates\ninclude:\n  - template: Jobs/Dependency-Scanning.gitlab-ci.yml\n  - template: Jobs/SAST.gitlab-ci.yml\n  - template: Jobs/Secret-Detection.gitlab-ci.yml\n\ndeploy-agent:\n  stage: deploy\n  identity: google_cloud\n  rules:\n    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == \"main\"\n  before_script:\n    - gcloud config set core/disable_usage_reporting true\n    - gcloud config set component_manager/disable_update_check true\n    - pip install -q --no-cache-dir --upgrade pip google-genai google-cloud-aiplatform -r requirements.txt --break-system-packages\n  script:\n    - gcloud config set project $GCP_PROJECT_ID\n    - adk deploy agent_engine \n        --project=$GCP_PROJECT_ID \n        --region=$GCP_REGION \n        --staging_bucket=gs://$STORAGE_BUCKET \n        --display_name=\"$AGENT_NAME\" \n        $AGENT_ENTRY\n```\n\nThe pipeline consists of two stages:\n\n**Test stage** — GitLab's security scanners run automatically. The included templates provide dependency scanning, static application security testing (SAST), and secret detection without additional configuration.\n\n**Deploy stage** — Uses the ADK CLI to deploy your agent directly to Agent Engine. The staging bucket temporarily holds your application workload before Agent Engine picks it up for deployment.\n\n### Key configuration notes\n\n- The `identity: google_cloud` directive enables keyless authentication via Workload Identity Federation.\n- Security scanners are included as templates, meaning they run by default with no setup required.\n- The `adk deploy agent_engine` command handles all the complexity of packaging and deploying your agent.\n- Pipeline caching speeds up subsequent deployments by preserving pip dependencies.\n\n## 3. Deploy and verify\n\nWith your pipeline configured:\n\n1. Commit your agent code and `.gitlab-ci.yml` to GitLab.\n2. Navigate to **Build > Pipelines** to monitor execution.\n3. Watch the test stage complete security scans.\n4. Observe the deploy stage push your agent to Agent Engine.\n\nOnce the pipeline succeeds, verify your deployment in the Google Cloud Console:\n\n1. Navigate to **Vertex AI > Agent Engine**.\n2. Locate your deployed agent.\n3. Note the **resource name** — you'll need this for testing.\n\n## 4. Test your deployed agent\n\nTest your agent using a curl command. You'll need three pieces of information:\n\n- **Agent ID**: From the Agent Engine console (the resource name's numeric identifier)\n- **Project ID**: Your Google Cloud project\n- **Location**: The region where you deployed (e.g., `us-central1`)\n\n```bash\nPROJECT_ID=\"\u003Cyour-project-id>\"\nLOCATION=\"us-central1\"\nAGENT_ID=\"\u003Cyour-agent-id>\"\nTOKEN=$(gcloud auth print-access-token)\n\ncurl -X POST \\\n  -H \"Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN\" \\\n  -H \"Content-Type: application/json\" \\\n  \"https://${LOCATION}-aiplatform.googleapis.com/v1/projects/${PROJECT_ID}/locations/${LOCATION}/reasoningEngines/${AGENT_ID}:streamQuery\" \\\n  -d '{\n    \"input\": {\n      \"message\": \"I make $85,000 per year and I prefer cities with mild winters and a vibrant cultural scene. I also want to be near the coast if possible. What Canadian cities would you recommend?\",\n      \"user_id\": \"demo-user\"\n    }\n  }' | jq -r '.content.parts[0].text'\n```\n\nIf everything is configured correctly, your agent will respond with personalized city recommendations based on the budget and lifestyle preferences provided.\n\n## Security benefits of this approach\n\nThis deployment pattern provides several security advantages:\n\n- **No long-lived credentials**: Workload Identity Federation eliminates service account keys entirely.\n- **Automated vulnerability scanning**: Every deployment is scanned before reaching production.\n- **Complete audit trail**: GitLab maintains full visibility of who deployed what and when.\n- **Principle of least privilege**: Fine-grained IAM roles limit access to only what's needed.\n\n## Summary\n\nDeploying AI agents to production doesn't have to be complex. By combining GitLab's DevSecOps platform with Google Cloud's Agent Engine, you get:\n\n- A managed runtime that handles scaling and infrastructure\n- Built-in security scanning without additional tooling\n- Keyless authentication via native cloud integration\n- A streamlined deployment process that fits modern AI development workflows\n\nWatch the full demo:\n\n\n\u003Cfigure class=\"video_container\"> \u003Ciframe src=\"https://www.youtube.com/embed/sxVFa2Mk-x4?si=Oi3cUjhgd7FT2yEd\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" title=\"Deploy AI Agents to Agent Engine with GitLab\"> \u003C/iframe> \u003C/figure>\n\n> Ready to try it yourself? Use this tutorial's [complete code example](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-partners-public/google-cloud/demos/agent-engine-demo) to get started now. Not a GitLab customer yet? Explore the DevSecOps platform with [a free trial](https://about.gitlab.com/free-trial/).\n",{"featured":31,"template":13,"slug":742},"secure-and-fast-deployments-to-google-agent-engine-with-gitlab",{"promotions":744},[745,758,770],{"id":746,"categories":747,"header":748,"text":749,"button":750,"image":755},"ai-modernization",[9],"Is AI achieving its promise at scale?","Quiz will take 5 minutes or less",{"text":751,"config":752},"Get your AI maturity score",{"href":753,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":244},"/assessments/ai-modernization-assessment/","modernization assessment",{"config":756},{"src":757},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/qix0m7kwnd8x2fh1zq49.png",{"id":759,"categories":760,"header":762,"text":749,"button":763,"image":767},"devops-modernization",[761,38],"product","Are you just managing tools or shipping innovation?",{"text":764,"config":765},"Get your DevOps maturity score",{"href":766,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":244},"/assessments/devops-modernization-assessment/",{"config":768},{"src":769},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138785/eg818fmakweyuznttgid.png",{"id":771,"categories":772,"header":773,"text":749,"button":774,"image":778},"security-modernization",[25],"Are you trading speed for security?",{"text":775,"config":776},"Get your security maturity score",{"href":777,"dataGaName":754,"dataGaLocation":244},"/assessments/security-modernization-assessment/",{"config":779},{"src":780},"https://res.cloudinary.com/about-gitlab-com/image/upload/v1772138786/p4pbqd9nnjejg5ds6mdk.png",{"header":782,"blurb":783,"button":784,"secondaryButton":789},"Start building faster today","See what your team can do with the intelligent orchestration platform for DevSecOps.\n",{"text":785,"config":786},"Get your free trial",{"href":787,"dataGaName":52,"dataGaLocation":788},"https://gitlab.com/-/trial_registrations/new?glm_content=default-saas-trial&glm_source=about.gitlab.com/","feature",{"text":496,"config":790},{"href":56,"dataGaName":57,"dataGaLocation":788},1772652059600]