Covers the full supply chain security stack: keyless image signing with Cosign, SBOM generation and attestation with Syft, CVE scanning with Trivy/Grype, SLSA Level 2 provenance, and Kyverno admission enforcement. All tools are open-source with no license cost.

Tool Stack

Tool	Purpose	Project
Cosign (Sigstore)	Keyless image signing and verification	CNCF (Sigstore)
Fulcio	Certificate authority for keyless signing	CNCF (Sigstore)
Rekor	Transparency log for signatures and attestations	CNCF (Sigstore)
Syft	SBOM generation (SPDX, CycloneDX)	Anchore OSS
Trivy	CVE scanning, SBOM, misconfiguration detection	CNCF (Aqua)
Grype	CVE scanning against Syft SBOM	Anchore OSS
slsa-github-generator	SLSA Level 2/3 provenance via GitHub Actions	OpenSSF
Kyverno ImageValidatingPolicy	Admission enforcement for signed images	CNCF

Keyless Signing with Cosign

Keyless signing uses GitHub Actions OIDC tokens — no private key to store, rotate, or leak.

Flow

GitHub Actions OIDC token
  → Fulcio CA (issues short-lived signing certificate)
  → Cosign signs image digest with that certificate
  → Signature + certificate uploaded to Rekor transparency log

Sign in CI

# Job-level permissions required for keyless signing
permissions:
  id-token: write   # required for Cosign OIDC token exchange with Fulcio
  packages: write   # required to push to GHCR

- name: Install Cosign
  uses: sigstore/cosign-installer@11086d9f32b178aa24e93c2b86eba3ef4b16b68a  # v3.8.1

- name: Sign image
  run: |
    cosign sign --yes \
      ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}@${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}

Always sign the digest, not the tag. Tags are mutable; a digest is immutable.

Verify locally

cosign verify \
  --certificate-identity-regexp="https://github.com/<org>/<repo>/.github/workflows/.*" \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer="https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com" \
  ghcr.io/<org>/<image>@<digest>

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Fix
`no matching signatures`	Image was pushed without signing step	Run the sign step after push, not before
`certificate has expired`	Short-lived cert checked too late	Re-sign; keyless certs are valid for ~10 min
`COSIGN_EXPERIMENTAL set in CI`	Leftover cosign v1 config	Remove it; keyless is the default in cosign v2

SBOM Generation and Attestation with Syft

An SBOM (Software Bill of Materials) lists every package inside the image. Attesting it as an OCI artifact links the SBOM to the specific image digest in Rekor.

Generate and attest

# Job-level permissions required for cosign attest
permissions:
  id-token: write   # required for Cosign OIDC token exchange with Fulcio
  packages: write   # required to push attestation to GHCR

- name: Generate SBOM
  uses: anchore/sbom-action@61119d458adab75f756bc0b9e4bde25725f86a7a  # v0.20.0
  with:
    image: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}@${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}
    format: spdx-json
    output-file: sbom.spdx.json

- name: Attest SBOM
  run: |
    cosign attest --yes \
      --predicate sbom.spdx.json \
      --type spdxjson \
      ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}@${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}

SBOM formats

Format	Use case
`spdx-json`	Broadest tooling support; recommended default
`cyclonedx-json`	Better for dependency tracking; preferred by some scanners

Retrieve SBOM attestation

cosign download attestation \
  --predicate-type https://spdx.dev/Document \
  ghcr.io/<org>/<image>@<digest> \
  | jq '.payload | @base64d | fromjson'

Vulnerability Scanning: Trivy vs Grype

Both tools scan container images for CVEs. Use Trivy for new setups; use Grype if already using Syft in the pipeline.

Trivy (recommended)

- name: Scan image
  uses: aquasecurity/trivy-action@18f2135c0b15d26b3a4c2efded75e06b6f0e4884  # v0.30.0
  with:
    image-ref: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}@${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}
    format: table
    exit-code: '1'
    ignore-unfixed: true
    vuln-type: os,library
    severity: CRITICAL,HIGH

ignore-unfixed: true suppresses CVEs with no available fix — they cannot be actioned, and suppressing them reduces noise without weakening the gate.

Grype (Anchore)

- name: Scan with Grype
  uses: anchore/scan-action@16910d14a7731ecfd3ac9785e39a479f53cca83c  # v3.9.0
  with:
    image: ${{ env.REGISTRY }}/${{ env.IMAGE_NAME }}@${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}
    fail-build: true
    severity-cutoff: high

Severity gate strategy

Gate	What it catches	Recommended for
`CRITICAL` only	Actively exploited, widely known	Minimum viable gate
`CRITICAL,HIGH`	High-impact CVEs with known exploit paths	Recommended default
`CRITICAL,HIGH,MEDIUM`	Broad coverage	Regulated environments

SLSA Level 2 Provenance

SLSA (Supply-chain Levels for Software Artifacts) Level 2 provides a signed attestation linking the artifact to the exact build inputs: source commit, workflow, and runner.

What each level requires

Level	Requirement
L1	Provenance generated (unsigned)
L2	Provenance signed by CI; hosted build platform
L3	Hardened builds; hermetic; no secret injection

L2 is achievable on standard GitHub-hosted runners. L3 requires hermetic builds (not available on standard runners).

Workflow (slsa-github-generator)

jobs:
  build:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    outputs:
      digest: ${{ steps.build.outputs.digest }}
    permissions:
      contents: read
      packages: write
    steps:
      - name: Checkout
        uses: actions/checkout@11bd71901bbe5b1630ceea73d27597364c9af683  # v4.2.2

      - name: Build and push
        id: build
        uses: docker/build-push-action@48aba3b46d1b1fec4febb7c5d0c644b249a11355  # v6.10.0
        with:
          push: true
          tags: ghcr.io/<org>/<image>:${{ github.sha }}

  provenance:
    needs: build
    permissions:
      actions: read
      id-token: write
      packages: write
    uses: slsa-framework/slsa-github-generator/.github/workflows/generator_container_slsa3.yml@5a775b367a56d5bd118a224a811bba288150a563  # v2.0.0
    # Pin to a specific release SHA for production. Get SHA via:
    # gh api repos/slsa-framework/slsa-github-generator/git/ref/tags/v2.0.0
    with:
      image: ghcr.io/<org>/<image>
      digest: ${{ needs.build.outputs.digest }}
      registry-username: ${{ github.actor }}
    secrets:
      registry-password: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

Verify provenance

slsa-verifier verify-image \
  ghcr.io/<org>/<image>@<digest> \
  --source-uri github.com/<org>/<repo> \
  --source-branch main

Kyverno Admission Enforcement

Block unsigned or unverified images at the Kubernetes admission layer using ImageValidatingPolicy.

Keyless policy (Sigstore)

apiVersion: policies.kyverno.io/v1
kind: ImageValidatingPolicy
metadata:
  name: require-signed-images
  annotations:
    policies.kyverno.io/title: Require Signed Images
    policies.kyverno.io/description: >
      Block admission of images not signed via Sigstore keyless signing from GitHub Actions.
      Apply to selected namespaces using matchConditions.
spec:
  validationActions: [Audit]   # switch to [Deny] after all images are signed
  matchConstraints:
    resourceRules:
    - apiGroups: [""]
      apiVersions: ["v1"]
      operations: ["CREATE", "UPDATE"]
      resources: ["pods"]
  matchImageReferences:
  - glob: "ghcr.io/<org>/*"
  attestors:
  - name: cosign
    cosign:
      keyless:
        identities:
        - issuer: "https://token.actions.githubusercontent.com"
          subjectRegExp: "https://github.com/<org>/.*/.github/workflows/.*@refs/heads/main"
        ctlog:
          url: https://rekor.sigstore.dev
  validations:
  - expression: >-
      images.containers.map(image,
        verifyImageSignatures(image, [attestors.cosign])
      ).all(e, e > 0)
    message: "Image must be signed via Sigstore keyless signing from GitHub Actions (main branch)."

Note: ImageValidatingPolicy is cluster-scoped — there is no namespace field in metadata. Targeting pods in the core API group ensures all workloads are covered, including those created by Jobs, CronJobs, and bare pod specs. Kyverno's autogen can extend coverage to higher-level controllers but is not enabled by default for ImageValidatingPolicy.

Deployment strategy

Start with validationActions: [Audit] — monitor violations without blocking
Review audit events: kubectl get policyreport -A
Move to validationActions: [Deny] once all images in scope are signed

Cross-reference

For full ImageValidatingPolicy syntax, CEL expressions, and kyverno-cli testing: see references/kyverno.md.

Gap Classification (for audit mode)

Gap	Severity	Impact
No image signing	Critical	Any image admitted; no provenance chain
No CVE severity gate	Critical	Vulnerable images ship to production
No SBOM	High	Cannot audit what packages are running
Severity gate CRITICAL only	High	HIGH-severity CVEs pass undetected
Action versions pinned to tag	Medium	Supply chain attack via tag mutation
No SLSA provenance	Medium	No cryptographic link between build and artifact
SBOM not attested	Medium	SBOM exists but not linked to image