KubeDock Security Scan

Misconfigured Kubernetes manifests and Dockerfiles are a common source of security vulnerabilities — yet they often go undetected until after deployment. KubeDock Security Scan catches these issues earlier by running Checkov security checks directly inside your Azure DevOps pipeline, before any code reaches production.

What it does:

• 🔍 Scans Kubernetes manifests, Dockerfiles, and Helm charts for security misconfigurations
• 📋 Publishes a detailed HTML report as a dedicated KubeDock Scan tab in the pipeline summary
• 💬 Posts inline PR comments on violations when used as a branch policy build validation pipeline
• 📊 Emits per-check metrics via OpenTelemetry for observability dashboards (e.g. Grafana)

What it solves:

• ⚡ Gives development teams immediate feedback on security issues during the pull request stage, rather than at runtime
• 🛡️ Enforces a consistent security baseline across all repositories without requiring each team to configure Checkov themselves

By default it runs all built-in Checkov policies. As a Kubernetes operator, you can narrow the scope to a specific policy list or supply custom checks (YAML or Python) via a central policy repository. See the Custom Policy Setup section for details.

Sample

Scanning result with guidelines links are shown in the KubeDock Scan tab

If this task is used for build validation pipeline of a branch policy and input postPrComments is set as true, then pull request comments will appear if there is any violation found.

You can set OTLP endpoint and OTLP headers as environment variables, and it will send metrics to your observability endpoint. This is sample of using Grafana Cloud. More info, look in to Enabling Telemetry section

Inputs

How It Works

1. Installs Checkov via pip install checkov on the agent.
2. Runs three scans against repoPath:
   • Kubernetes manifests (--framework kubernetes)
   • Dockerfiles (--framework dockerfile)
   • Helm charts — either via helm template render (if helmTemplatesPath is set) or directly (--framework helm)
3. If policyRepoPath is provided, passes checkov-policy.yaml as --config-file and custom-checks/ as --external-checks-dir.
4. Generates an HTML report and attaches it to the pipeline summary as the "KubeDock Security Scan" tab.
5. Sets the task result based on failOnIssues.
6. If this pipeline is used in build pipeline set in branch policy, you can set to true for "postPrComment", to provide faster feedback for misconfiguration during PR.
7. If you have observability platform with OTLP endpoint, you can follow the Enabling telemetry section, and telemetry will be sent to your platform.

Usage Examples

Minimal — scan the whole repo, warn on issues:

- task: KubeDockSecurityScan@0
  inputs:
    repoPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'

With custom policies and fail on issues:

- task: KubeDockSecurityScan@0
  inputs:
    repoPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    policyRepoPath: '$(Pipeline.Workspace)/policy-repo'
    failOnIssues: true

With Helm rendering using multiple values files:

- task: KubeDockSecurityScan@0
  inputs:
    repoPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    helmFolderPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/helm/myapp'
    helmTemplatesPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)/templates'
    helmValuesPaths: 'helm/myapp/values.yaml,helm/myapp/values.yaml,helm/myapp/values.yaml,helm/myapp/values.staging.yaml'
    failOnIssues: true

Note: helmTemplatesPath cannot be used without helmFolderPath — the task will error if helmTemplatesPath is set but helmFolderPath is empty.

With PR comments on failed checks (branch policy pipeline):

- task: KubeDockSecurityScan@0
  inputs:
    repoPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    postPrComment: true
    failOnIssues: true
  env:
    SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN: $(System.AccessToken)

Note: postPrComment requires the build service identity to have Contribute to pull requests permission on the repository. Grant this in Project Settings → Repositories → Security. The SYSTEM_ACCESSTOKEN env var must be explicitly mapped — Azure DevOps does not expose System.AccessToken to tasks automatically.

With telemetry sent to Observability Platform:

- task: KubeDockSecurityScan@0
  inputs:
    repoPath: '$(System.DefaultWorkingDirectory)'
    failOnIssues: true
  env:
    OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT: '<your-otlp-endpoint>'
    OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_HEADERS: 'Authorization=Basic $(token)'
    OTEL_SERVICE_NAME: 'kubedock-security-scan'

Note: Store yourtoken as a secret pipeline variable. The env: block maps it into the task process without exposing it in logs.

Enabling Telemetry

Set these environment variables on your Azure DevOps agent:

Metric: kubedock_scan_failed_checks_total

Each failed Checkov check emits one counter increment with these labels:

Grafana Dashboard — Failed Checks by Repository

Panel type: Bar chart

Sample PromQL query:

sum by (repository) (kubedock_scan_failed_checks_total)

Dashboard setup in Grafana:

1. Go to Dashboard and add a new Dashboard.
2. Add a new Panel and click Configure visualization.
3. At the bottom of query editor, select the prometheus data source
4. Put the sample PromQL above into the input text box.
5. Click Run queries

Custom Policy Setup

To curate your own policy list, choose from the following:

a. Checkov Kubernetes policy list.

b. Checkov Docker policy list.

1. Create a yaml file with name checkov-policy.yaml in a folder with following content to test out:

   This following checks are from existing Checkov policy, select some for your team/company purpose.

check:
  # Kubernetes
  - CKV_K8S_8    # Liveness probe configured
  - CKV_K8S_9    # Readiness probe configured
  - CKV_K8S_14   # Image tag not :latest
  - CKV_K8S_15   # Image pull policy not Always when using :latest
  - CKV_K8S_20   # Containers do not run as root
  - CKV_K8S_28   # Do not admit containers with NET_RAW capability
  - CKV_K8S_30   # Do not admit containers with added capability
  - CKV_K8S_36   # Ensure pod is not running with dangerous capabilities
  - CKV_K8S_37   # Minimize the admission of containers with added capability

  # Custom
  # Uncomment this if you have custom policy - CKV2_K8S_CUSTOM_1  # CPU request must not exceed 1 core

  # Dockerfile
  - CKV_DOCKER_1  # Ensure FROM statement uses a specific version tag
  - CKV_DOCKER_2  # Ensure that HEALTHCHECK instructions have been added
  - CKV_DOCKER_3  # Ensure that a USER for the container has been created
  - CKV_DOCKER_4  # Ensure that the Dockerfile does not contain ADD instruction

2. If this folder is put in a different repo, make sure this repo is pre-checkout in a folder path, then pass into argument policyRepoPath.
3. If you have custom policy via YAML or python, place them into a folder named custom-checks along side the checkov-policy.yaml file.

Feedback & Review

If this extension helps your team/company in the software development lifecycle, please support by providing your feedback in the above Rating & Review tab or provide a star to the github repo.

Any issue or feature requests, please go to github to create an issue.