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Environment Policies enable you to define and enforce compliance requirements for artifact deployments across different environments. With Environment Policies, you can:
  • Define specific requirements for each environment (e.g, dev, staging, prod)
  • Enforce consistent compliance standards across your deployment pipeline
  • Prevent non-compliant artifacts from being deployed (via admission controllers)
Policies are written in YAML and are immutable (updating a policy creates a new version). They can be attached to one or more environments, and an environment can have one or more policies attached to it.

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Create a Policy

You can create a policy via CLI or via the API. Here is a basic policy that requires provenance and specific attestations:
prod-policy.yaml
_schema: https://kosli.com/schemas/policy/environment/v1
artifacts: # the rules apply to artifacts in an environment snapshot
  provenance:
    required: true # all artifacts must have provenance
  attestations:
    - name: dependency-scan # all artifacts must have dependency-scan attestation
      type: "*" # any attestation type
    - name: unit-test # all artifacts must have unit-test attestation
      type: junit # must be a 'junit' attestation type
You can create and manage policies using the Kosli CLI (global flags like org and api-token are omitted for brevity): 
kosli create policy prod-requirements prod-policy.yaml

kosli get policy prod-requirements
See kosli create policy for usage details and examples.
Once you create a policy, you will be able to see it in the UI under policies in the left navigation menu.

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Declarative Policy Syntax

A Policy is declaratively defined according to the following schema: 
_schema: https://kosli.com/schemas/policy/environment/v1

artifacts:
  provenance:
    required: true | false (default = false)
    exceptions: (default [])
      - if: ${{ expression }}

  trail-compliance:
    required: true | false (default = false)
    exceptions: (default [])
      - if: ${{ expression }}

  attestations: (default [])
    - if: ${{ expression }} (default = true)
      name: str (default = "*") # cannot have both name and type as *
      type: oneOf ['*', 'junit', 'jira', 'pull_request', 'snyk', 'sonar', 'generic', 'custom:<custom-type-name>'] (default = "*") # cannot have both name and type as *

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Policy Rules

A policy consists of rules which are applied to artifacts in an environment snapshot.

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Provenance

When provenance is set to required: true, the artifact must be part of a Kosli Flow (i.e., it must have provenance information). 
artifacts:
  provenance:
    required: true

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Trail Compliance

When trail-compliance is set to required: true, the artifact must be part of a compliant Trail in its Flow. 
artifacts:
  trail-compliance:
    required: true

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Specific Attestations

artifacts:
  attestations:
    - name: "*" # attestation name can be anything
      type: pull-request
    - name: acceptance-test
      type: "*" # attestation type can be any built-in or existing custom type
    - name: security-scan
      type: snyk
    - name: coverage-metrics
      type: custom:my-coverage-metrics # custom attestation type

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Policy Rules Exceptions

You can add exceptions to policy rules using expressions. 
_schema: https://kosli.com/schemas/policy/environment/v1

artifacts:
  provenance:
    required: true
    exceptions:
      # provenance is required except when one of the expressions evaluates to true
      - if: ${{ expression1 }}
      - if: ${{ expression2 }}

  trail-compliance:
    required: true
    exceptions:
      # trail-compliance is required except when one of the expressions evaluates to true
      - if: ${{ expression1 }}
      - if: ${{ expression2 }}

  attestations:
    - if: ${{ expression }} # this attestation is only required when expression evaluates to true
      name: unit-tests
      type: junit

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Policy Expressions

Policy expressions allow you to create conditional rules using a simple and powerful syntax. Expressions are wrapped in ${{ }} and can be used in policy rules to create dynamic conditions. An expression consists of operands and operators:
Expressions support these operators:
  • Comparison: ==, !=, <, >, <=, >=
  • Logical: and, or, not
  • List membership: in
Operands can be:
  • Literal string
  • List
  • Context variable
  • Function call
Contexts are built-in objects which are accessible from an expression. Expressions can access two main contexts:
  • flow - Information about the Kosli Flow:
    • flow.name - Name of the flow
    • flow.tags - Flow tags (accessed via flow.tags.tag_name)
  • artifact - Information about the artifact:
    • artifact.name - Name of the artifact
    • artifact.fingerprint - SHA256 fingerprint
Functions are helpers that can be used when constructing conditions. They may or may not accept arguments. Arguments can be literals or context variables. Expressions can use following functions:
  • exists(arg) : checks whether the value of arg is not None/Null
  • matches(input, regex) : checks if input matches regex
  • ${{ exists(flow) }}
  • ${{ flow.name in ["runner", 'saver', differ] }}
  • ${{ matches(artifact.name, "^datadog:.*") }}
  • ${{ flow.name == "runner" and matches(artifact.name, "^runner:.*") }}
  • ${{ flow.tags.risk-level == "high" or matches(artifact.name, "^runner:.*") }}
  • ${{ not flow.tags.risk-level == "high"}}
  • ${{ flow.tags.risk-level != "high"}}
  • ${{ flow.tags.key.with.dots == "value"}}
  • ${{ flow.tags.risk-level >= 2 }}
  • ${{ flow.name == 'prod' and (flow.tags.key_name == "value" or artifact.name == 'critical-service') }}
  • ${{ flow.name == 'HIGH-RISK' and artifact.fingerprint == "37193ba1f3da2581e93ff1a9bba523241a7982a6c01dd311494b0aff6d349462" }}

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Attaching/Detaching Policies to/from Environments

Once you define your policies, you can attach them to environments via CLI or API: 
kosli attach-policy prod-requirements --environment=aws-production
To detach a policy from an environment: 
kosli detach-policy prod-requirements --environment=aws-production
Any attachment/detachment operation automatically triggers an evaluation of the latest environment snapshot and creates a new one with an updated compliance state.
If you detach all attached policies from an environment, the environment compliance state will become Unknown since there are no longer any defined requirements for artifacts running in it. The environment will continue to track snapshots, but its compliance cannot be evaluated without policies.

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Policy Enforcement Gates

Environment policies enable you to proactively block deploying a non-compliant artifact into an environment. This can be done as a deployment gate in your delivery pipeline or as an admission controller in your environment. Regardless of where you place your policy enforcement gate, it will be using the assert artifact Kosli CLI command or its equivalent API call. 
kosli assert artifact --fingerprint=$SHA256 --environment=aws-production
An artifact can also be asserted directly against one or more policies. 
kosli assert artifact --fingerprint=$SHA256 --policy=has-approval,has-been-integration-tested
Last modified on March 10, 2026