Allstar is a GitHub App that continuously monitors GitHub organizations or repositories for adherence to security best practices. If Allstar detects a security policy violation, it creates an issue to alert the repository or organization owner. For some security policies, Allstar can also automatically change the project setting that caused the violation, reverting it to the expected state.
Allstar’s goal is to give you finely tuned control over the files and settings that affect the security of your projects. You can choose which security policies to monitor at both the organization and repository level, and how to handle policy violations. You can also develop or contribute new policies.
Allstar is developed under the OpenSSF organization, as a part of the Securing Critical Projects Working Group.
If you're getting unwanted issues created by Allstar, follow these directions to opt out.
Allstar is highly configurable. There are three main levels of controls:
- Org level: Organization administrators can choose to enable Allstar on:
- all repositories in the org;
- most repositories, except some that are opted out;
- just a few repositories that are opted in.
These configurations are done in the organization's .allstar repository.
-
Repo level: Repository maintainers in an organization that uses Allstar can choose to opt their repository in or out of organization-level enforcements. Note: these repo-level controls are only functional when "repo override" is allowed in the org-level settings. These configurations are done in the repository's
.allstardirectory. -
Policy level: Administrators or maintainers can choose which policies are enabled on specific repos and which actions Allstar takes when a policy is violated. These configurations are done in a policy yaml file in either the organization's
.allstarrepository (admins), or the repository's.allstardirectory (maintainers).
Before installing Allstar at the org level, you should decide approximately how many repositories you want Allstar to run on. This will help you choose between the Opt-In and Opt-Out strategies.
-
The Opt In strategy allows you to manually add the repositories you'd like Allstar to run on. If you do not specify any repositories, Allstar will not run despite being installed. Choose the Opt In strategy if you want to enforce policies on only a small number of your total repositories, or want to try out Allstar on a single repository before enabling it on more.
-
The Opt Out strategy (recommended) enables Allstar on all repositories and allows you to manually select the repositories to opt out of Allstar enforcements. You can also choose to opt out all public repos, or all private repos. Choose this option if you want to run Allstar on all repositories in an organization, or want to opt out only a small number of repositories or specific type (i.e., public vs. private) of repository.
| Opt Out (Recommended) optOutStrategy = true |
Opt In optOutStrategy = false |
|
|---|---|---|
| Default behavior | All repos are enabled | No repos are enabled |
| Manually adding repositories | Manually adding repos disables Allstar on those repos | Manually adding repos enables Allstar on those repos |
| Additional configurations | optOutRepos: Allstar will be disabled on the listed repos optOutPrivateRepos: if true, Allstar will be disabled on all private repos optOutPublicRepos: if true, Allstar will be disabled on all public repos (optInRepos: this setting will be ignored) |
optInRepos: Allstar will be enabled on the listed repos (optOutRepos: this setting will be ignored) |
| Repo Override | If true: Repos can opt out of their organization's Allstar enforcements
using the settings in their own repo file. Org level opt-in settings that
apply to that repository are ignored. If false: repos cannot opt out of Allstar enforcements as configured at the org level. |
If true: Repos can opt in to their organization's Allstar enforcements even
if they are not configured for the repo at the org level. Org level opt-out
settings that apply to that repository are ignored. If false: Repos cannot opt into Allstar enforcements if they are not configured at the org level. |
Both the Quickstart and Manual Installation options involve installing the Allstar app. You may review the permissions requested. The app asks for read access to most settings and file contents to detect security compliance. It requests write access to issues and checks so that it can create issues and allow the block action.
This installation option will enable Allstar using the Opt Out strategy on all repositories in your organization. All current policies will be enabled, and Allstar will alert you of policy violations by filing an issue. This is the quickest and easiest way to start using Allstar, and you can still change any configurations later.
Effort: very easy
Steps:
- Install the Allstar app
- Open the installation page and click Configure
- If you have multiple organizations, select the one you want to install Allstar on
- Select "All Repositories" under Repository Access, even if you plan to disable Allstar on some repositories later
- Fork the sample repository
- Open the sample repository and click the "Use this template" button
- In the field for Repository Name, type
.allstar - Click "Create repository from template"
That's it! All current Allstar policies are now enabled on all your repositories. Allstar will create an issue if a policy is violated.
To change any configurations, see the manual installation directions.
This installation option will walk you through creating configuration files according to either the Opt In or Opt Out strategy. This option provides more granular control over configurations right from the start.
Effort: moderate
Steps:
- Install the Allstar app (choose "All Repositories" under Repository Access, even if you don't plan to use Allstar on all your repositories)
- Follow the manual installation directions to create org-level or repository-level Allstar config files and individual policy files.
Each policy can be configured with an action that Allstar will take when it detects a repository to be out of compliance.
log: This is the default action, and actually takes place for all actions. All policy run results and details are logged. Logs are currently only visible to the app operator, plans to expose these are under discussion.issue: This action creates a GitHub issue. Only one issue is created per policy, and the text describes the details of the policy violation. If the issue is already open, it is pinged with a comment every 24 hours without updates (not currently user configurable). If the policy result changes, a new comment will be left on the issue and linked in the issue body. Once the violation is addressed, the issue will be automatically closed by Allstar within 5-10 minutes.fix: This action is policy specific. The policy will make the changes to the GitHub settings to correct the policy violation. Not all policies will be able to support this (see below).
Proposed, but not yet implemented actions. Definitions will be added in the future.
block: Allstar can set a GitHub Status Check and block any PR in the repository from being merged if the check fails.email: Allstar would send an email to the repository administrator(s).rpc: Allstar would send an rpc to some organization-specific system.
Two settings are available to configure the issue action:
-
issueLabelis available at the organization and repository level. Setting it will override the defaultallstarlabel used by Allstar to identify its issues. -
issueRepois available at the organization level. Setting it will force all issues created in the organization to be created in the repository specified.
Similar to the Allstar app enable configuration, all policies are enabled and
configured with a yaml file in either the organization's .allstar repository,
or the repository's .allstar directory. As with the app, policies are opt-in
by default, also the default log action won't produce visible results. A
simple way to enable all policies is to create a yaml file for each policy with
the contents:
optConfig:
optOutStrategy: true
action: issue
The details of how the fix action works for each policy is detailed below. If omitted below, the fix action is not applicable.
This policy's config file is named branch_protection.yaml, and the config
definitions are
here.
The branch protection policy checks that GitHub's branch protection settings are setup correctly according to the specified configuration. The issue text will describe which setting is incorrect. See GitHub's documentation for correcting settings.
The fix action will change the branch protection settings to be in compliance with the specified policy configuration.
This policy's config file is named binary_artifacts.yaml, and the config
definitions are
here.
This policy incorporates the check from scorecard. Remove the binary artifact from the repository to achieve compliance. As the scorecard results can be verbose, you may need to run scorecard itself to see all the detailed information.
This policy's config file is named outside.yaml, and the config definitions
are
here.
This policy checks if any Outside Collaborators have either administrator(default) or push(optional) access to the repository. Only organization members should have this access, as otherwise untrusted members can change admin level settings and commit malicious code. Also, by default, all repositories must have an organization user or group assigned as an Administrator.
This policy's config file is named security.yaml, and the config definitions
are
here.
This policy checks that the repository has a security policy file in
SECURITY.md and that it is not empty. The created issue will have a link to
the GitHub
tab
that helps you commit a security policy to your repository.
This policy's config file is named dangerous_workflow.yaml, and the config
definitions are
here.
This policy checks the GitHub Actions workflow configuration files
(.github/workflows), for any patterns that match known dangerous
behavior. See the Security Scorecards
Documentation
for more information on this check.
This policy's config file is named scorecard.yaml, and the config definitions
are
here.
This policy runs any scorecard check listed in the checks configuration. All
checks run must have a score equal or above the threshold setting. Please see
the Security Scorecards
Documentation
for more information on each check.
This policy's config file is named actions.yaml, and the config definitions
are
here.
This policy checks the GitHub Actions workflow configuration files
(.github/workflows) (and workflow runs in some cases) in each repo to ensure
they are in line with rules (eg. require, deny) defined in the
organization-level config for the policy.
- Ensure dependabot is enabled.
- Check that dependencies are pinned/frozen.
See this repo as an example of Allstar config being used. As the organization administrator, consider a README.md with some information on how Allstar is being used in your organization.
By default, org-level configuration files, such as the allstar.yaml file
above, are expected to be in a .allstar repository. If this repository does
not exist, then the .github repository allstar directory is used as a
secondary location. To clarify, for allstar.yaml:
| Precedence | Repository | Path |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | .allstar |
allstar.yaml |
| Secondary | .github |
allstar/allstar.yaml |
This is also true for the org-level configuration files for the individual policies, as described below.
Allstar will also look for repo-level policy configurations in the
organization's .allstar repository, under the directory with the same name as
the repository. This configuration is used regardless of whether "repo override"
is disabled.
For example, Allstar will lookup the policy configuration for a given repo
myapp in the following order:
| Repository | Path | Condition |
|---|---|---|
myapp |
.allstar/branch_protection.yaml |
When "repo override" is allowed. |
.allstar |
myapp/branch_protection.yaml |
All times. |
.allstar |
branch_protection.yaml |
All times. |
.github |
allstar/myapp/branch_protection.yaml |
If .allstar repo does not exist. |
.github |
allstar/branch_protection.yaml |
If .allstar repo does not exist. |
For org-level Allstar and policy configuration files, you may specify the field
baseConfig to specify another repository that contains base Allstar
configuration. This is best explained with an example.
Suppose you have multiple GitHub organizations, but want to maintain a single
Allstar configuration. Your main organization is "acme", and the repository
acme/.allstar contains allstar.yaml:
optConfig:
optOutStrategy: true
issueLabel: allstar-acme
issueFooter: Issue created by Acme security team.You also have a satellite GitHub organization named "acme-sat". You want to
re-use the main config, but apply some changes on top by disabling Allstar on
certain repositories. The repository acme-sat/.allstar contains
allstar.yaml:
baseConfig: acme/.allstar
optConfig:
optOutRepos:
- acmesat-one
- acmesat-twoThis will use all the config from acme/.allstar as the base config, but then
apply any changes in the current file on top of the base configuration. The
method this is applied is described as a JSON Merge
Patch. The baseConfig must be
a GitHub <org>/<repository>.
Both the SECURITY.md and Outside Collaborators policies are quite simple to understand and good examples to copy.