# Continuous Integration
Fairwinds Insights can do more than just scan and audit a live Kubernetes Cluster. It can also help you spot issues before they make it into production.
By adding Fairwinds Insights into your Continuous Integration process, you can catch image vulnerabilities and Kubernetes misconfigurations early in the development process. Insights can scan changes the changes in each pull request, notifying developers or breaking the build whenever security, efficiency, or reliability issues are found.
# Setup
To get started, visit your organization's Repositories tab, and click Add Repo

Following the instructions there, add a fairwinds-insights.yaml
configuration to the base
of your repository. Here's a minimal example:
Be sure to replace
acme-co
with your organization's name in Insights.
options:
setExitCode: true
organization: acme-co
images:
docker:
- nginx:1.18-alpine
- quay.io/acme-co/my-app:$CI_HASH
manifests:
yaml:
- ./deploy/mainfests/
- ./main.deployment.yaml
helm:
- name: prod
path: ./deploy/chart
values:
foo: bar
Next, you'll need to add the FAIRWINDS_TOKEN
environment variable to your CI environment. This
token can be found in the CI instructions in Insights, or on your organization's settings page. Note that
most CI platforms provide a way to specify secrets in your environment variables.
Last, you'll need to execute the Insights CI script within your CI pipeline. You may want to download, inspect, and store a copy of the script in your repository.
curl https://insights.fairwinds.com/static/insights-ci.sh | bash
Your repository will show up in the Insights UI once that script has been successfully run.
# fairwinds-insights.yaml
Here's a full list of options available in fairwinds-insights.yaml:
# Options
These are high-level options for the Insights CI integration.
options.organization
- the name of your organization in Insightsoptions.setExitCode
- set a non-zero exit code if issues are found. Defaultfalse
options.baseBranch
- the branch to compare results to. Defaultmaster
options.newActionItemThreshold
- the maximum number of new action items that can appear for a passing test. Default0
options.severityThreshold
- if any action item hits this threshold, the test will fail. Defaultdanger
options.junitOutput
- if specified, Insights will print JUnit XML results hereoptions.repositoryName
- the name of the repository. Must match the name in GitHub if using the GitHub integration. Defaults to the output ofgit remote -v
options.tempFolder
- a temporary directory to store files in. Default./_insightsTemp/
options.hostname
- the host of the Insights instance to send results to. Defaulthttps://insights.fairwinds.com
# Images
Specify any images you'd like Insights to scan for vulnerabilities. These images must be available
locally in your CI environment, either through running docker build
or docker pull
.
images.docker
- an array of image names and tags to scanimages.folder
- path to a folder containing exported docker images as .tgz files. Helpful if your images are in an alternative daemon like podman or cri-o (if you are, let us know!)
Note that you can include environment variables in your image names and tags. This is helpful if you set your image tag based on things like the current Git branch, tag, or commit SHA.
# Manifests
Specify any YAML or Helm manifests you'd like Insights to scan for configuration issues. Helm files can be templated using a variables file, or by specifying variables directly in your fairwinds-insights.yaml
manifests.yaml
- an array of directories or files containing Kubernetes YAML manifests to scanmanifests.helm
- an array of helm charts to template and scanmanifests.helm[].name
- a name to give this templated chartmanifests.helm[].path
- the path to the directory containingChart.yaml
manifests.helm[].values
- values to pass to the chart when templatingmanifests.helm[].valuesFile
- a YAML file containing values to pass to the chart when templating
# Exemptions
You can tell Insights that certain files or checks should be excluded from the CI scan. Insights will look for Action Items that match all of the provided fields, and mark them as exempt.
It's a good practice to include the reason
field for future reference.
exemptions[].filename
- the name of the file to exemptexemptions[].image
- the name of the image to exempt for a Trivy scanexemptions[].report
- the name of the report type (e.g.polaris
,pluto
,trivy
, oropa
)exemptions[].checks[]
- an array of check IDs to skip (e.g.runAsNonRoot
)exemptions[].reason
- a human-readable description of why this exemption is necessary
# Connect to GitHub
You can still use the Continuous Integration feature without GitHub.
Using Gitlab, Bitbucket, or another Git host? Let us know!
Connecting Insights to your GitHub repository will help you get the most out of the CI integration. To get started, click the Install Now link on your organization's repositories tab.
Then, in the GitHub UI, choose which repositories you'd like to link to Insights:
Once your repository is linked, you'll start seeing a Fairwinds Insights status on each of your
pull requests.
We recommend setting options.setExitCode: false
in your fairwinds-insights.yaml, since
this check will now fail in place of your CI pipeline.
# Viewing the Results
The Repositories tab will show you a list of all repositories that have been connected to Insights.
Next to each repo, you can see the number of danger
and warning
items currently found in the main
branch.
When you click on a particular repository, the first thing you'll see is a list of action items
affecting the main branch.
Below that, you'll see a section for each branch, along with a list of action items that have been created or fixed in that branch.
For example, here's a branch that creates some security issues in passing.yaml
:
And here's a branch that fixes some security issues in failing.yaml
: