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Review: GitGuardian MCP Controls with Enforceable Secret-Scanning Gates

· 2 min read
Victor Jimenez
Victor Jimenez
Software Engineer & AI Agent Builder

If AI agents can open pull requests, secret scanning must become a hard merge gate, not a best-effort report. The practical baseline is: pre-commit scanning for fast feedback, CI blocking checks for enforceability, and policy-controlled break-glass paths with audit logs.

What Breaks Without a Gate​

Teams adopting agent-generated code often add scanners but keep them non-blocking. That pattern fails because leaked credentials still reach protected branches when:

  • scans run only locally,
  • CI jobs are optional,
  • exceptions are handled in chat instead of policy.

Enforceable Integration Pattern​

Use GitGuardian capabilities in two layers:

  1. Local developer/agent feedback with ggshield.
  2. Required CI status checks on pull requests.

CI Gate Example (GitHub Actions)​

name: secret-scan

on:
  pull_request:
  push:
    branches: [main]

jobs:
  gitguardian:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - name: GitGuardian scan
        uses: GitGuardian/ggshield/actions/secret@v1.37.0
        env:
          GITGUARDIAN_API_KEY: ${{ secrets.GITGUARDIAN_API_KEY }}

Then enforce this workflow as a required status check in branch protection. If the check fails, merge is blocked.

Agent-Safe Policy Contract​

Treat every MCP-driven code contribution as untrusted until it passes:

  • secret scanning gate,
  • unit/integration tests,
  • ownership review for security-sensitive files.

A minimal policy rule is: no direct pushes to protected branches, and no bypass of required checks except a documented, time-bound break-glass process.

  1. Add ggshield scan in CI and set it as required.
  2. Add local/pre-commit scanning for faster fixes.
  3. Track false positives and create explicit ignore governance.
  4. Audit exception usage monthly; reduce to near zero.

Verdict​

This approach is worth adopting now for teams shipping AI-assisted code. The key is not tool installation, it is enforceability: if the secret-scanning job is not a required gate, you do not have a control.

References​