Do I need service mesh for zero trust?

You need authenticated, encrypted, and authorized service-to-service calls. A mesh like Istio makes mTLS and authz practical at scale, but you can start with sidecars or library-based mTLS for a subset. The key is workload identity (SPIFFE IDs) and policy-driven authorization.

Will zero trust slow my team down?

Not if you ship it as paved roads. Policy-as-code in CI, golden templates, and GitOps keep velocity high. Teams slow down when controls are manual, inconsistent, or discovered only at deploy time.

How do I handle AI-generated configs safely?

Treat AI output as untrusted. Run K8s and Terraform through OPA/Kyverno policies, kubeconform, and signature verification. We routinely do vibe code cleanup passes and add guardrails that block risky defaults (e.g., privileged pods, `0.0.0.0/0` ingress).

What evidence do auditors actually want?

Immutable proofs: signed image digests, SLSA provenance, SBOMs, passing policy decisions, and a GitOps change history. Link those artifacts in your change requests—no screenshots, just verifiable objects.

Security-compliance · Nov 29, 2025 · 10 minute read

Zero Trust Without Killing Velocity: Guardrails, Proofs, and Shipping Regulated Data

How to design zero-trust for distributed systems that auditors love and engineers don’t hate—using policy-as-code, identity, and automated evidence.

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Zero Trust Without Killing Velocity: Guardrails, Proofs, and Shipping Regulated Data

Key takeaways

Implementation checklist