Do we need both OPA and Kyverno?

Pick one for Kubernetes admission. Kyverno is Kubernetes-native and easier for teams without Rego experience. OPA Gatekeeper is great if you already write Rego or need to reuse policy across non-K8s contexts with Conftest.

Is HashiCorp Sentinel better than OPA for Terraform?

If you’re deep in Terraform Cloud/Enterprise, Sentinel’s integration and management UX are solid. If you’re multi-tool or want open policy across IaC and runtime, OPA/Conftest provides flexibility. Many teams start with Checkov and graduate to OPA.

How do we stop break-glass from becoming the default path?

Time-limit every exception, require a reason code and risk owner, auto-create a ticket, and post a weekly exception report to execs. If an exception repeats, make a backlog item to fix the underlying control or process.

What about regulated data discovery and tagging?

Automate classification where possible (e.g., BigQuery DLP, AWS Macie) and enforce tags in IaC with policy. For services, require a `data_classification` label in Helm/Kustomize and validate at admission.

Will all this slow us down?

Done right, it speeds you up. You replace meetings and manual checks with fast, deterministic feedback. We routinely see lead time improve 20–30% once approvals and checks move into the pipeline.

Security-compliance · Oct 1, 2025 · 10 minute read

The SOC 2 Audit That Didn’t Slow Our Releases: Compliance as Code in the Pipeline

Translate policy into automated guardrails, checks, and signed proofs—so you can ship daily without sweating audit week.

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The SOC 2 Audit That Didn’t Slow Our Releases: Compliance as Code in the Pipeline

Key takeaways

Implementation checklist