Automate Cerbos policy deployments with GitHub Actions
Push validated Cerbos policies to Cerbos Hub on every merge using a GitHub Actions workflow.
Workflow-driven
A single workflow file triggers policy uploads on every push to your main branch
Secret management
Store Cerbos Hub credentials as GitHub secrets, injected securely at runtime
Zero-downtime updates
Cerbos Hub distributes updated bundles to connected PDPs with no restarts or redeployments
How Cerbos works with GitHub Actions
Authorization policies should go through the same review and deployment rigour as application code. GitHub Actions lets you automate that workflow so every policy change is tested and deployed without manual steps.
Cerbos Hub stores your compiled policy bundles and distributes them to connected PDP instances. A CI/CD pipeline pushes validated policies to Cerbos Hub on every merge, and your PDPs pick up the changes automatically.
With GitHub Actions handling the pipeline and Cerbos Hub handling distribution, policy updates flow from pull request to production with a full audit trail and zero downtime.
How to deploy Cerbos policies with GitHub Actions
- Create a workflow file, Add
.github/workflows/upload-policies.ymlto your repository with a step that runs the cerbosctl Docker image. - Store credentials as secrets, Add
CERBOS_HUB_CLIENT_IDandCERBOS_HUB_CLIENT_SECRETto your repository secrets in GitHub. - Push to main, Every push to main triggers the workflow, which uploads your policies to Cerbos Hub using
hub store replace-files. - PDPs update automatically, Connected PDP instances pull the latest policy bundle from Cerbos Hub with zero downtime.
FAQ
How does the GitHub Actions workflow deploy policies?
A workflow step runs the cerbosctl Docker image and executes `hub store replace-files` to upload your policy directory to Cerbos Hub. Connected PDP instances pull the updated bundle automatically.
What credentials do I need?
You need a Cerbos Hub client ID and client secret with Read & Write permissions, stored as GitHub repository secrets.
Can I run policy tests before deploying?
Yes. Add a prior workflow step that runs `cerbos compile` against your policy directory to validate and test policies before the upload step.
Learn more about Cerbos
Related integrations
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Cerbos + GitHub Actions
- Policies deployed to Cerbos Hub automatically on every merge via GitHub Actions
- Connected PDP instances pick up changes with zero downtime
- Policy changes go through the same review process as application code
- Full audit trail from commit to production deployment
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What is Cerbos?
Cerbos is an end-to-end enterprise authorization software for Zero Trust environments and AI-powered systems. It enforces fine-grained, contextual, and continuous authorization across apps, APIs, AI agents, MCP servers, services, and workloads.
Cerbos consists of an open-source Policy Decision Point, Enforcement Point integrations, and a centrally managed Policy Administration Plane (Cerbos Hub) that coordinates unified policy-based authorization across your architecture. Enforce least privilege & maintain full visibility into access decisions with Cerbos authorization.