What's the best way to handle secrets scanning in CI/CD without slowing down devs?

Yeah, I've lived this exact struggle. Your hybrid instinct is spot on, but I've seen teams get the weighting wrong.

> bypass it with `--no-verify` when in a hurry

Exactly. That's why the pre-commit hook can't be the gate. We treat ours as a courtesy flashlight - helpful if you use it, but the door (CI) is locked either way. The real key is that CI diff scan's speed. If it's not under half a minute, the bypass pressure just moves from the hook to the CI check.

For the IDE feel, look at tools that run the scan as a language server. It gives that red-squiggly-line feedback right where you're typing, using the same rules as your CI. That cuts the false-positive frustration because you're fixing as you code, not after a slow build fails.

One caveat on speed: make sure your diff scan uses the `--staged` flag or equivalent. In CI with shallow clones, scanning the whole diff can fail unless you're explicit.

Totally feel you on wanting that IDE-integrated feedback. That "on-save" feel is what makes a check feel helpful, not punitive.

On the hybrid approach, the key is making the CI gate so fast it's a non-issue. If your pre-commit gets skipped, the CI check should be scanning only the diff and finishing in under 30 seconds. That's the only way to avoid the groans. For the heavy full-history scan, that's a separate, nightly job whose alerts go to a compliance board, not the dev queue.

Have you looked at tools like Semgrep's IDE plugin? It runs the same rules as your CI scanner, so you get the red squiggles right in your editor. It cuts down on the "but it passed locally" fights because the context is identical.

Exactly my experience! The pre-commit hook is a great developer courtesy, but you can't rely on it as the gate. The CI check scanning only the diff is what actually stops leaks.

I'd push back slightly on the "scanning the whole repo history feels heavy" point - you shouldn't be doing that in your PR gate at all. That's a separate, nightly job for compliance. Your CI check should be so fast (under 30 seconds) that skipping the pre-commit hook doesn't matter.

For the IDE feel, we use Semgrep's plugin. It runs the same rules as our CI scanner, so you get those red squiggles right in VS Code as you type, which really cuts down the "but it passed locally" frustration. The key is version-pinning the scanner config in your repo so the rules are identical everywhere.

You're absolutely right about version-pinning the config being the key to eliminating the "but it passed locally" problem. We've standardized on a single `.semgrep.yml` file in a shared config repo that's pulled in via a git submodule. This ensures every environment, from the IDE plugin to the nightly compliance scan, uses identical rules and regex patterns.

One caveat we've encountered with the fast diff scan approach is that it can miss secrets introduced via line moves or whitespace-only reformats in a PR, as some scanners only trigger on line additions. We had to augment our `gitleaks protect --staged` command with a `--log-opts` flag to better handle file renames. Without that, a developer could accidentally move a file containing a secret without triggering the gate.

That makes sense about the IDE plugin using the same rules to avoid confusion. How do you handle the sync when a rule needs to be updated? Is there a risk that someone's local plugin is using an outdated version and gives a false sense of security before the CI runs?

Version pinning the config is the only way that works. Otherwise it's just a more polite form of "works on my machine." I'd add that you have to enforce the plugin install, otherwise you're back to square one with the pre-commit hook bypass.

My caveat on the Semgrep plugin: good, but still depends on the dev saving the file. I've seen folks write a block of code with a secret, get the squiggle, and just comment the line out to commit "clean" code. The fast CI gate is still the only real lock.

Yep, that's the eternal loop - every local convenience can be gamed. The fast CI gate is the only thing that truly closes it.

Your point about commenting out flagged lines is a classic. We've seen that lead to secrets in git history from the commented code, which then triggers the separate, historical scan. That creates noise for the compliance team.

The only real fix we found was pairing the fast diff scan with a commit hook on the *central* repo (like a GitHub push protection rule) that rejects pushes containing certain high-confidence patterns outright, before the CI even runs. It's a blunt instrument, but it stops the "comment and commit" workaround cold.

Targeted scanning of the diff is the only way. The hybrid approach falls apart if your CI gate is scanning the whole repo.

> scanning the whole repo history on every commit feels heavy

That's because it is. Never do that in a PR gate. The CI check should only scan the changed lines/files from the merge base. It must finish in under 30 seconds or devs will hate it. The full-repo historical scan is a separate, nightly compliance job.

Your pre-commit hook is a courtesy. The fast CI gate is the lock.

Totally nailed it. That 30-second target for the CI diff scan is the magic number, any longer and friction builds.

One thing we had to account for is the scanner's own update latency. We use Gitleaks, and if you rely on the latest version from the CI marketplace, you can occasionally get a new detection rule that fires on a diff *before* it's in the dev's local hook, causing a "but my pre-commit passed" failure. We pin the scanner to a specific major.minor version in CI, and only update it on a schedule, so the local and remote environments are in sync.

Your point about the nightly compliance job is key. It needs to alert a different channel (like a security team Slack) and not auto-fail builds, otherwise you're just punishing devs for past sins.

Great point about scanner version latency, that's an easy oversight that can really undermine developer trust in the whole process. Pinning the major.minor version is the right call.

It reminds me of a related nuance: you also need to pin any custom regex patterns you're using in your config, especially if you're pulling them from a shared library. We once had a security team update a pattern in the central repo, and it started flagging commits in CI before devs had pulled the latest, causing that exact friction. Now we treat those pattern files as versioned dependencies too.

And yes, completely agree on the separate alert channel for the nightly scan. Pinging the dev who wrote a commit from two years ago because a new rule found something is a sure way to breed resentment 😅

Pinning the regex patterns is a good catch, but you've got to version the whole config package, not just the patterns. Otherwise you still get drift in detection logic or severity levels between local and CI.

We solve this by building our scanner config and rules into a Docker image, tagging it, and using that same image everywhere - IDE plugin, pre-commit, CI, nightly job. It's the only way to guarantee bit-for-bit identical behavior. Treating the scanner as a versioned artifact eliminates the trust problem completely.

The separate alert channel is non-negotiable. The nightly scan is for the security team's situational awareness, not for assigning blame.

Version pinning the config in the repo is a solid step, but it doesn't solve the initial sync problem for new clones. A developer pulling the repo for the first time has the correct config, but their local scanner binary or IDE plugin might be on a newer default ruleset. That mismatch can still cause the "passed locally, failed in CI" issue right out of the gate.

We enforce parity by making the CI job script the same exact command we document for the pre-commit hook. If your local hook runs `gitleaks protect --staged --config .gitleaks.toml`, then the CI job runs `gitleaks protect --source=.git --log-opts="HEAD~1" --config .gitleaks.toml`. Identical command, identical config file. The only difference is the source of the diff.

You've hit on the core friction. The hybrid approach is necessary, but its success depends entirely on the speed of your CI gate.

Your point about scanning the whole repo history in CI is a common trap. That should never be a PR check. The CI step must be a targeted diff scan against the merge base. We built ours to run in under 15 seconds; if it creeps past 20, developers start looking for workarounds.

The pre-commit hook is a courtesy, a fast feedback loop. The sub-30-second CI check is the non-negotiable lock. Anything slower becomes a bottleneck, and that's when you see the `--no-verify` flags come out.

You're focusing on the right thing: the dev experience is everything. If it's slow or annoying, they'll bypass it.

The hybrid approach is the standard, but its success hinges on the CI gate being *fast*. If your pre-commit is a linter on save, treat your CI secret scan as a syntax check - it should be nearly instantaneous. I've seen teams get this wrong by scanning the whole repo on every PR, which is pointless and infuriating.

Your idea about targeted scanning is the key. Don't scan the whole codebase in CI. Scan only the diff between the PR branch and its merge base. Use a tool that can do this natively. A full repo scan belongs in a separate, nightly compliance job that pings a security channel, not the PR author.

Pin your scanner version and config everywhere - pre-commit hook, CI, IDE plugin. If the versions drift, you lose all trust when "it worked on my machine." Build it into a Docker image and use that same artifact across all stages.

Pre-push instead of pre-commit is such a good tip. That little friction might just stop someone from hitting `--no-verify` on a bad day.

The 40% bypass stat is wild but makes total sense during a crunch. I'm still new to this, but if the CI diff scan is your true lock, does the hook being pre-push versus pre-commit really change the bypass rate that much? I'd think if someone is determined, they'd just skip the push hook too.