Implementing Policy As Code With Open Policy Agent

When to Use

• When enforcing organizational security policies across Kubernetes clusters programmatically
• When requiring admission control that blocks non-compliant resources from being created
• When implementing policy governance that can be version-controlled, tested, and audited
• When standardizing security rules across multiple clusters and environments
• When needing a flexible policy engine that extends beyond Kubernetes to APIs and CI/CD

Do not use for vulnerability scanning (use Trivy/Checkov), for runtime threat detection (use Falco), or for network policy enforcement (use Kubernetes NetworkPolicy or Calico).

Prerequisites

• Kubernetes cluster with admin access for Gatekeeper installation
• Helm for Gatekeeper deployment
• OPA CLI or conftest for local policy testing
• Rego knowledge for policy authoring

Workflow

Step 1: Install OPA Gatekeeper