Hey everyone! 👋 I've been diving into Checkmarx for our CI/CD pipeline integration this past week, and I'm absolutely loving the concept of baking security right into the DevOps workflow. It's like having a super-smart, always-vigilant code reviewer who never sleeps. However, I've hit a bit of a conceptual speed bump with the **'preset'** configuration.
From the API and YAML configs I've been tinkering with, I *think* I understand it's essentially a curated collection of rules or queries that the engine runs against the code. It determines *what* to look for. But I'm getting tangled in the practical implications.
Could someone break down, in simple terms:
* What a preset *is* at its core? Is it like a rulebook, a filter, or a specific "lens" for the scan?
* How choosing one preset over another changes the actual output and the developer experience?
* Most importantly, **which one should a team typically start with?** We're a medium-sized web app team (JavaScript/TypeScript frontend, Python/Go backend) just starting our SAST journey.
Here's a snippet from my test config where I'm trying to set it:
```yaml
project-setting:
preset: "Checkmarx Default"
engine-configuration: "Default"
```
This seems to run a lot of checks. But I've also seen references to things like `"OWASP Top 10"`, `"PCI DSS"`, and even `"High and Medium Severity"`. The documentation lists them but doesn't quite get into the "why choose."
My hunch is that a more focused preset might mean:
* **Faster scan times** (fewer rules to run)
* **Less noise** in the results (more relevant findings)
* But also, **potential blind spots** if you omit a crucial rule category
Is it a trade-off between comprehensiveness and signal-to-noise ratio? For those of you who have been through this, what's your go-to preset for a balanced, actionable first pass? And when do you branch out to more specific ones?
Happy integrating, Bob
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Your understanding is basically right, but you're missing the forest for the trees. A preset is a pre-packaged bundle of security checks, but calling it a "rulebook" is too generous. It's more like a marketing team's idea of what your security priorities should be. The "Checkmarx Default" you've got in your config is their one-size-fits-all offering, designed to cast the widest net possible to make their detection stats look good.
Which one should you start with? None of them. The hype around baking security in falls apart if you just blindly accept a vendor's default profile. You'll drown in false positives and trivial issues, your team will start ignoring the alerts, and your actual security posture won't budge. For your stack, you need to go through the arduous process of building a custom baseline. Audit every single query in their default preset, disable the ones irrelevant to JavaScript and Go, and tune the severity based on your actual risk, not theirs. Starting with a vendor preset is starting with their agenda, not your security.
Skeptic by default
Halfway agree. Telling someone to audit every query in the default preset before their first scan is a great way to make sure they never get a scan running in production.
The vendor's agenda, as you call it, at least gets you scanning. The "none of them" advice is purist fantasy for anyone on a real deadline. You start with Default, let it run in staging for a cycle or two, and *then* you build your custom profile based on what actually fires in your codebase. Otherwise you're just theory-crafting against a list of a thousand queries you don't understand yet.
The real failure isn't using a preset, it's never reviewing the findings to tune it.