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Security fits DevOps best when it is shared work throughout delivery—not a final approval handed to a security team after design and release decisions are already made. Set requirements and owners early, add relevant checks to the tools teams already use, protect release artifacts, and use operating feedback to improve the next cycle.
What DevSecOps means in practice
DevSecOps brings security into planning, development, build and test automation, artifact packaging and distribution, release management, deployment, and operations. The goal is not simply to run more scans earlier. It is to make security requirements, responsibilities, automated analysis, vulnerability handling, and feedback part of the delivery lifecycle.
NIST’s NCCoE presents a reference model, not a single required pipeline. Its stages are Plan, Develop, Build, Test, Release, Deploy, and Operate, with security analysis, monitoring, and feedback carried across those stages. Teams can adapt the model to their own software and risks. NIST’s notional reference model describes the flow.
How security work moves through a delivery lifecycle
Plan: set requirements and ownership
Agree on security requirements before implementation choices become difficult to change. Identify who owns decisions, which teams handle findings, and what evidence a release needs. Organizational preparation also includes selecting and maintaining secure development environments and toolchains. The NIST mapping of the Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) to the reference model connects these preparation activities with later development, analysis, and release practices.
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Develop: design and write code with security in view
Use the plan to inform design and coding choices, rather than relying on a late-stage scan to discover every issue. Security practitioners can help teams assess risks and shape useful requirements; developers can apply them in the software and raise constraints early. The SSDF mapping includes secure design and coding alongside analysis and testing.
Build and test: automate relevant checks
Run suitable analysis in the CI workflow so teams can see findings while they are working on the change. NIST’s reference model gives these examples:
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- Static application security testing (SAST): examines source code for potential security weaknesses.
- Software composition analysis (SCA): helps identify risks in software components and dependencies.
- Secret scanning: looks for exposed credentials or other secrets.
- Infrastructure-as-code (IaC) scanning: checks infrastructure definitions for security concerns.
- Container image scanning: analyzes container images for potential issues.
These are categories to consider, not a mandatory bundle for every project. Choose checks according to the software, its dependencies, deployment model, and risks. NIST identifies the analysis types but does not set universal thresholds for blocking a build. Each organization must decide which findings should stop a change, generate an alert, or be tracked for remediation, and assign someone to act on them.
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Security includes protecting code from tampering and preserving the integrity of what is released. A pipeline should make it possible to understand which artifacts were built and what security evidence accompanies them. NIST’s SP 800-204D, published in February 2024, focuses on integrating software supply-chain security into DevSecOps CI/CD pipelines. Its reference includes concepts such as artifacts, attestations, provenance, repositories, software bills of materials (SBOMs), and SLSA.
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These concepts support release review and traceability; they do not replace the organization’s decisions about which controls and evidence are appropriate. The SSDF mapping also includes release integrity as part of secure software development practices.
Operate: monitor and feed lessons back
Deployment is not the end of security work. Monitoring and operational feedback can reveal new risks, missed assumptions, or changes that should influence future plans and checks. NIST’s reference model treats feedback as continuous across the lifecycle rather than as a one-time handoff at release.
How to choose checks and pipeline controls
There is no universally prescribed tool stack in NIST’s material. When selecting or improving a workflow, assess the options against practical criteria:
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- Lifecycle coverage: Which stages are supported, from development through operations?
- Risk and artifact fit: Does the check address the code, dependencies, secrets, infrastructure definitions, or images the team actually uses?
- Workflow fit: Can results appear in the repository, build, and deployment process where the responsible team can use them?
- Useful findings: Are results understandable, traceable, and actionable enough to support triage and remediation?
- Access protection: How are identities, credentials, and permissions controlled in the toolchain?
- Release evidence: What information is available for reviewing the integrity and contents of a release?
- Clear ownership: Is a team responsible for reviewing findings and fixing or accepting risks?
This is a decision framework, not a vendor endorsement. The right combination depends on the software and its delivery environment. A check that produces findings without a clear route to triage can add noise rather than useful security feedback.
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A practical way to get started
- Agree on requirements and owners. Choose a concrete risk or security requirement and identify the team responsible for responding to findings.
- Add one relevant check to an existing workflow. Select a check that matches the software or artifact, and make its results visible where developers work.
- Define how results are handled. Decide locally which findings block a change, trigger an alert, or are tracked, and how exceptions or remediation are managed.
- Review release evidence and operational feedback. Use what the team learns from builds, releases, and deployed systems to identify gaps.
- Refine the requirements and checks. Adjust the workflow as risks, systems, and team experience change.
This adoption loop is a practical way to apply the lifecycle and SSDF concepts; it is not a prescribed NIST implementation sequence.
Where the NIST project applies—and where its scope stops
The NCCoE project focuses on applying the SSDF in cloud-based environments and describes its applicability as IT development for medium- to large-sized enterprises across sectors. Its project scope is not limited to a particular type of software, but it excludes operational technology (OT), the Internet of Things (IoT), and applied cryptography domains. Privacy concerns are also outside the project’s scope and should be addressed separately by organizations. These are boundaries of this NIST project, not limits on where teams can use DevSecOps.
The NCCoE describes the project’s aim this way: “The project produces practical and actionable guidelines that meaningfully integrate security practices into development methodologies.” Its DevSecOps Practices project page describes the applied work and project materials.
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