What A.8.27 secure system architecture and engineering principles asks for
A.8.27 asks the organization to set its own rules for engineering secure systems, write them down, keep them current and apply them to every information system it builds or changes. The control is built on four verbs, and an assessor will test each one separately. *Establish* means the organization has chosen principles, such as security by design, defense in depth, least privilege and secure defaults, that suit its systems. *Document* means those principles exist in a form staff can find and cite. *Maintain* means they are reviewed as technology, threats and business needs change. *Apply* means they show up in actual work. The control covers any information system development activity, so it reaches internal applications, purchased platforms that are configured or extended, infrastructure code and cloud architectures, not only product code.
The risk the control addresses is inconsistency. When each project team invents its own idea of security, one system may authenticate users properly while the next trusts the internal network entirely, and the gap often appears only after an incident. The hard part is that principles tend to live in a policy document that nobody opens during design. An assessor will look for the connection: a design template that asks how each principle is met, architecture review notes that cite the principles, pull request or change tickets that reference a design decision, and threat models for new services. Confirm with your auditor which artifacts they expect for your scope, since the standard does not prescribe a format.
Two cross-references help when you map this control into other frameworks. The correspondence table in ISO/IEC 27002:2022 Annex B traces A.8.27 to control A.14.2.5 of the 2013 edition, which is the predecessor you may still see in older documentation. NIST's crosswalk from SP 800-53 Rev. 5 relates A.8.27 to SA-8 (Security and Privacy Engineering Principles) and SA-17 (Developer Security and Privacy Architecture and Design), but NIST cautions that mapped controls are not always equivalent. Treat those mappings as starting points for your own gap analysis, not as proof that satisfying one control satisfies the other. The closely related controls A.8.25 and A.8.28 cover the development life cycle and secure coding, and the boundary between them should be stated in your documentation.
Which systems and teams A.8.27 applies to
A.8.27 reaches further than the application team that writes the code. Each scoping decision below changes who must follow the principles, which systems the document covers and what evidence an assessor will ask to see. Settle these choices before drafting the principles document so the scope is defensible.
In-house applications and services
Start with the systems your engineers build and run. The principles document should name the applications in scope and state which engineering principles apply to each, such as least privilege, input validation at trust boundaries and defense in depth. Evidence is usually design records, threat models and review notes tied to specific releases. Check that every in-house service appears in the scope list, not only the flagship products.
Cloud infrastructure as code
Infrastructure defined in templates or code is a system design decision, so it falls under A.8.27 as much as application code does. Principles such as segmentation, encrypted storage defaults and restricted administrative roles should be written into the modules themselves. The evidence is the repository history, peer review records and the policy checks that run before deployment.
Third-party and open-source components
Libraries, frameworks and hosted services shape your architecture even when you did not write them. Decide how far the principles reach into dependencies: for example, whether you require a component to support a given authentication model, or whether you only review its configuration in your own system. Record the decision, the components it covers and how you verify them, since assessors will ask how external parts were engineered for security.
Legacy systems under modification
A legacy system does not leave scope because it is old. When a team changes a legacy component, the principles should be applied to the changed design, even where the full system cannot be rebuilt. Document which principles were met, which gaps remain and the compensating controls around them. Assessors often find this card's evidence weakest, so keep change records that show the security review for each modification.
Teams outside engineering that design systems
Architects, platform operators, data teams and product owners often make design choices before any code is written. Those choices, such as where data is stored or which network zones connect, are engineering decisions. Name these roles in the principles document and confirm they receive the same guidance. Evidence includes architecture decision records and sign-offs from these teams, not only from developers.
Outsourced and contracted development
Work done by external developers or integrators must follow the same principles, which means the principles must be passed into contracts and statements of work. Ask suppliers for their design documentation and for proof that they applied the principles. Note that A.8.30 covers outsourced development in more depth, so use this card to confirm that your principles document names contractors as in scope.
How an assessor tests A.8.27
This table compares what an assessor checks for A.8.27, the evidence requested for each check and the findings that appear most often. Read each row as a question the assessor will ask, then confirm your own evidence answers it before the audit starts.
| Assessor check | Evidence requested | Common findings |
|---|---|---|
| Written principles document | The current engineering principles document, its owner, approval record, version history and the date of the last review | Principles are generic statements copied from general guidance, with no named owner or approval date |
| Principles tied to the organization's systems | Mapping of each principle to the architecture of the organization's own systems, such as identity boundaries, tenant isolation or segmentation of the self-hosted platform | Principles never refer to the systems the organization actually runs, so they cannot be tested |
| Sampling of recent design and development work | A sample of recent design documents, architecture decision records, change requests or pull requests showing where each principle was considered | Principles exist on paper but no project records show them being applied or waived with a reason |
| Interviews with engineers and architects | Explanations from engineers of how they apply defense in depth and security by design, and where they look up the principles | Engineers do not know the document exists or describe security as a separate review stage added at the end |
| Review after incidents and findings | Incident and post-incident records, security testing results and the change log of the principles document showing updates | No link between incidents, penetration test results and changes to the principles |
| Coverage of the system development life cycle | Evidence that principles apply to new builds, upgrades, third-party components and infrastructure as code, not only to one product team | Principles cover application code but skip infrastructure, configuration or acquired software |
| Alignment with related controls | Cross-references to A.8.25 secure development life cycle and A.8.28 secure coding, showing consistent rules | Principles and secure development procedures contradict each other or were written by different teams |
How to implement secure engineering principles step by step
This sequence turns a short list of engineering principles into a documented standard that teams apply in design, code and infrastructure work, and that the organization reviews on a fixed cycle. Each step ends with an artifact an assessor can inspect.
Select and tailor the principles
The security owner, with architects and senior engineers, chooses the principles that fit the systems in scope, such as defense in depth, least privilege, secure defaults and fail securely, and states what each one means for your products and platforms. Include the systems you build in-house, the components you adopt and any outsourced development. The output is a short principles list with a one-line definition and an example for each principle, approved by the person accountable for information security. The step is complete when every principle has a named owner and a stated scope.
Document the principles in a controlled location
Write the approved principles into a controlled document, held in a wiki or document repository that records version history, authorship and approval. Keep the document under the same change control as other policies so that edits are traceable. The output is a versioned engineering principles document with an owner, a review date and a link from the engineering handbook and the Statement of Applicability. The step is complete when someone outside the security team can find the current version and see who approved it.
Embed the principles in design review templates
Add a section to the architecture decision record and design review template that asks the team to show how each principle applies to the proposed system, including trust boundaries, default configurations and failure behavior. Reviewers, usually a security engineer and a peer architect, decide whether the design answers each question before build work starts. The output is a populated template for each significant design, with recorded reviewer decisions. The step is complete when a sample of recent designs shows the section filled in and the reviewer sign-off present.
Add the principles to the definition of done
Translate the principles into checkable acceptance criteria in the team's definition of done, so that a feature is not finished until its security-relevant design choices are implemented and tested. Engineering leads agree the wording with security, then apply it to backlog items and release checklists. The output is an updated definition of done and a checklist attached to pull requests or release tickets. The step is complete when the checklist appears in the ticketing tool for new work and teams have acknowledged it.
Enforce the principles in code and infrastructure review
Apply the principles during code review and infrastructure change review, and back the most important ones with automated checks. Protected branches in a self-hosted repository such as GitLab Community Edition can require approval before merge and block direct pushes, and Semgrep Community Edition can run rules in CI/CD pipelines to flag insecure patterns. Infrastructure changes should go through the same review path. The output is recorded review approvals, pipeline results and blocked-merge logs. The step is complete when you can show that a change to a protected branch cannot reach production without a reviewed, passing pipeline.
Review the principles on a set cycle
The security owner and engineering leads review the principles document, the design template, the checklist and the pipeline rules on a fixed schedule, and after significant incidents or architecture changes. They compare what teams actually did against what the principles require, record exceptions and decide whether any principle should change. Set the cycle in the policy itself and confirm it with your assessor. The output is review minutes, an updated document version and a log of exceptions with approvals. The step is complete when the latest review is recorded and each change traces back to a decision.
Evidence that passes an A.8.27 review
An assessor testing A.8.27 wants to see that the principles exist, that people followed them, and that the principles were reviewed as the system changed. The cards below cover the documents and records that show each of those three things. Each one needs a named owner and a review date so it stays current between audits.
Approved principles document
This is the controlled statement of the secure engineering principles your organization applies, such as security by design, defense in depth, least privilege and secure defaults. Keep it under version control with an approval record, a version history and a change log. Check that the approver is someone with authority over development, and that the document names a review date and an owner. An assessor will compare the version in force against the version cited in your Statement of Applicability.
Design review records
For each significant system or change, record which principles were checked during design and what the reviewer concluded. A useful record names the reviewer, the date, the principles applied and any accepted deviations with reasons. Assessors sample these records to confirm that principles were applied in practice, not only written down. Sampling works best when each record links to the ticket or project it covers.
Architecture decision records
Architecture decision records capture why a design choice was made, what alternatives were considered and which security trade-offs were accepted. They show how the principles shaped real decisions, such as choosing network segmentation or separating administrative interfaces. Store them in the same repository as the code or in a wiki with version history, and mark superseded decisions instead of deleting them. Confirm that each record has a status and a date.
Secure design templates
Templates standardize what a design must address before build starts, such as data classification, trust boundaries, authentication, logging and failure modes. A completed template for each system is strong evidence that the principles were applied consistently rather than selectively. Keep the template itself under change control, and review it when the principles document changes so the questions stay aligned with the principles.
Pull request review evidence
Code review records show that changes that touch security-relevant design were reviewed against the principles before merge. Protected branches with required approvals make the review step enforceable and leave an audit trail of who approved what. Confirm that direct pushes to protected branches are blocked and that force pushes are disabled, since either would bypass the record. Automated scanning results attached to each merge request add a second layer of evidence.
Periodic review minutes
Scheduled reviews of the principles, templates and sampled design records show that the ISMS is maintained over time, not only at certification. Record attendees, the systems reviewed, findings, decisions and owners for each action. Minutes that show a principle was revised after an incident or a major architecture change are particularly persuasive. Set the review interval in the principles document so the schedule can be verified.
How open-source tools keep A.8.27 evidence current
The principles themselves need a home that keeps history. A versioned wiki lets the security and architecture teams publish the engineering principles, the reference designs built from them and the decision records that explain why a design was accepted. Because every change is retained, an assessor can see what the principle said at the time a given system was built, not only what it says today. Two open-source options are named in the supplied facts.
- XWiki (LGPL-2.1-or-later): Every page change is kept under version control, recording what changed, when and by whom, with the ability to compare any two versions and roll back.
- BookStack (MIT): User abilities come from assigned roles, and permissions can be overridden per role at the shelf, book, chapter or page level, so the people who may edit principles can be limited to the security architecture group.
- Dated decision records: Each design decision should cite the principle it applies, such as least privilege or defense in depth, and name the approver.
- Review cadence: Record when each principle was last reviewed and by whom, so the document shows it is maintained.
- Link to systems: Reference each system's design record from its repository or configuration so the chain from principle to system is traceable.
Before relying on either tool as evidence, confirm with the vendor or your own administrators that version history and role settings are enabled and cannot be disabled by ordinary editors.
Engineering principles only count if changes to the systems that implement them pass through a controlled path. Protected branches in GitLab Community Edition (MIT) let the organization decide who can push or merge to important branches, which turns the design review into a recorded gate. An assessor can then ask who approved a change to a security-relevant component and find the answer in the repository, not in someone's memory.
- Restricted roles: Maintainers can limit which roles may push or merge to a branch, so only designated reviewers can merge into production-bound code.
- No direct pushes: Setting push access to no one blocks direct pushes, which forces changes through merge requests with a visible review trail.
- Force pushes disabled: Keeping force pushes off, unless explicitly allowed, protects the approval history from being rewritten.
- Security review as a merge condition: Where the team's process requires an architecture or security sign-off for a design change, record that reviewer in the merge request.
- Configuration export: Keep a copy of the protected branch settings as part of the evidence set, so the settings can be shown as they stood during an assessment period.
Confirm with your platform administrators that protected branch settings are applied to every repository that holds system design or infrastructure code, and that changes to those settings are themselves logged.
Principles such as secure defaults and input validation only show up in code if something checks for them. Semgrep Community Edition (LGPL-2.1-only) scans source code with community or custom rules and can run in CI/CD pipelines so that repositories are scanned on every change, not only before a release. The scan output and pipeline logs become evidence that the checks ran, which is what an assessor needs when asking whether engineering principles were applied during development.
- Broad language coverage: Supported languages include C/C++, C#, Go, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Rust, PHP, Kotlin, Swift and Terraform, so infrastructure definitions can be scanned alongside application code.
- Custom rules for your principles: Write rules that encode the organization's own principles, such as banning unencrypted service endpoints in Terraform, so the principle is tested and not only documented.
- Pipeline-level evidence: Retain pipeline logs that show the scan step ran on each merge request, with the rule set version recorded.
- Gate on findings: Decide which findings block a merge and record exceptions with an owner and a reason.
- Scope statement: Document which repositories are covered, so an assessor can see where the checks do not reach.
Check which language and rule set your teams use before committing to a scope, and confirm with the vendor how community rules are licensed for your use.
What meeting A.8.27 costs in money and effort
This table breaks down the cost components of keeping secure engineering principles in place, who is paid for each, whether it is one-time or recurring, and what moves it up or down. Use it to structure a quote request, since no price or duration is stated here and each figure depends on your system landscape and scope.
| Cost component | Who is paid or who carries it | One-time or recurring | What drives it up or down |
|---|---|---|---|
| Writing the engineering principles | Internal architects or security staff, sometimes an implementation partner | One-time, then revised | Number of product lines, existing design standards, and how many principles already exist in your SDLC documents |
| Maintaining principles and mapping them to design reviews | Architecture and security engineering staff | Recurring | Rate of architecture change, number of teams, and whether principles are linked to templates or left as standalone documents |
| Design and code review time | Engineers and reviewers across teams | Recurring | Size of the change set, whether checklists tie reviews to principles, and reviewer training |
| Tooling for enforcement (for example, protected branches and code scanning) | Platform team for setup, operations and upgrades; no license fee for open-source components | Setup one-time, operations recurring | Self-hosting effort, hosting capacity, number of repositories, and CI/CD integration complexity; open-source licenses remove license spend, not operating effort |
| External architecture review | Independent architecture or security consultant, billed by the engagement | Usually one-time per major design, sometimes periodic | System complexity, criticality of the system, and whether the review scope is written down before work starts |
| Auditor sampling and evidence review | Independent certification body or auditor, fees set by the auditor | Recurring across the audit cycle | Number of systems in scope, how easily evidence is retrieved, and whether design decisions are recorded with dates and owners |
| Internal coordination and remediation of findings | Internal teams, including engineering managers | Recurring, spikes around audits | Quality of design records, speed of remediation, and clarity of ownership for each principle |
Where A.8.27 programs usually fall short
Most A.8.27 gaps are not missing documents. They are principles that exist on paper but never reach the design reviews, third-party components and recent projects where an assessor will look for them. Each card below pairs one such gap with the action that closes it.
Principles written once and never applied
A principles document approved at the start of the ISMS often stays unchanged for years while the architecture moves on. Assessors look for evidence that the principles were used on real design decisions, not only that they exist. Check whether the document has a named owner, a review date and at least a few recent decisions that cite it. Closing action: assign an owner and tie each principle to a design decision the team already makes.
No link to design review templates
When architecture review templates never mention the engineering principles, reviewers have no prompt to apply them, and the principles stay abstract. Look at the templates your teams actually use for design documents, change requests and threat models. Closing action: add a required question for each principle to the design review template, and keep the completed reviews as evidence.
Third-party and open-source components left out
Principles often describe the organization's own code and ignore libraries, managed services and vendor platforms that make up much of the architecture. A design that trusts an unvetted dependency can violate defense in depth without anyone noticing. Confirm whether the principles state how external and open-source components are selected, configured and reviewed. Closing action: extend the principles to cover component selection, isolation and ongoing review of dependencies.
No evidence from recent projects
A common audit finding is that the principles are documented but no recent project shows them being applied. Auditors usually ask for a sample of current development work, and a gap in that sample is hard to explain. Sample the last few system changes or new services and check for a recorded design review and a security decision. Closing action: keep a short record per project showing which principles were considered and what was decided.
Principles disconnected from development life cycle
Principles that sit outside the secure development life cycle are rarely checked at the points where code is written, tested and released. Related controls A.8.25 and A.8.28 depend on the same principles, so gaps here weaken those controls too. Confirm that each life cycle phase names the principles it applies. Closing action: map the principles to the phases of your development process and record the mapping in the ISMS.
Who owns A.8.27 and what a partner can take on
Your organization owns the secure engineering principles. A.8.27 asks that principles for engineering secure systems be established, documented, maintained and applied to information system development activities. That means decisions about what the principles say, who approves them and how they bind architects and developers sit with your leadership and engineering managers, not with an outside party. The principles must reflect your own systems, risks and development model.
- Setting the content: Choose the principles, such as least privilege, defense in depth and secure defaults, and tailor them to your architecture.
- Approving the document: Named owners sign off the principles and record approval and review dates.
- Applying them to decisions: Architecture reviews, design records and change requests should show the principles being used.
- Maintaining them: Schedule reviews when technology, threats or products change, and record the outcome.
- Training and accountability: Engineers need to know the principles exist and who answers questions about them.
Before accepting any draft, check that a named role owns each principle and that your own engineers can explain how they apply it to a real design.
An implementation partner can do much of the preparatory work, provided your team keeps ownership of the decisions. Typical support includes drafting document templates, setting up the tooling that holds the principles and design records, defining how evidence is structured and collecting it, and building review records that show principles were applied. The partner prepares systems and evidence; it does not decide your risk appetite or sign the principles on your behalf.
- Templates: Draft a principles document and an architecture review template for your team to edit and adopt.
- Tooling: Configure version-controlled wikis, repository protections and code scanning so that changes and reviews leave a trail.
- Evidence structure: Define where design records, review minutes and exception approvals are stored and how they are indexed.
- Review records: Set up checklists that architects complete for each significant design.
- Gap review: Compare the principles with actual practice and list the gaps for your team to close.
Ask the partner to state in the written scope which items it prepares and which items your staff must complete. Fixed-scope agreements make that boundary easier to hold.
The independent auditor tests whether A.8.27 is met and reports the result. An accredited certification body or other independent assessor samples your documented principles, design records and review evidence, and interviews staff to confirm the principles are understood and used. The auditor never writes the principles, prepares the evidence or fills in the review records it will later test, because that would remove the independence the assessment depends on.
- Testing design: The auditor checks that principles exist, are documented and cover the development activities in scope.
- Testing operation: The auditor samples recent design and change records to see whether principles were applied.
- Testing maintenance: The auditor looks for evidence of review and updates over time.
- Reporting: Only the certification body issues the certificate or formal report.
- Independence: Advice from the same firm on how to pass the test can conflict with the audit.
If an outside party offers both to build the evidence and to certify it, ask how the certification body will keep its independence and confirm that with the certification body directly.
Questions buyers ask about A.8.27
How much effort does A.8.27 take compared with other technological controls?
A.8.27 usually takes less hands-on build work than controls such as A.8.15 Logging or A.8.20 Networks security, because it is mainly a documentation and application control rather than a deployed technical system. The effort lies in agreeing the principles, writing them down in terms engineers can use, and showing that each project applies them. Controls that require tooling, configuration and recurring operation, such as logging and monitoring, generally cost more to run over time. The main cost driver for A.8.27 is how many systems and teams are in scope, and how many architecture decisions already exist without a record. Ask any provider to price the work from a written list of systems, teams and existing design documents.
Can a small engineering team meet A.8.27 without an implementation partner?
Yes, a small team can meet A.8.27 in-house if it has someone who understands secure architecture and the authority to enforce the principles. The team must choose its principles, document them, keep them current, and show they are applied in design reviews and change records. A partner is useful when the team lacks architecture experience, has no time to write the documents, or needs an outside view of its designs before an assessor arrives. Under ISO/IEC 27001, the organization owns the control; an outside partner can prepare systems and evidence but cannot issue a certificate. Only an independent certification body can do that.
How long does it take to get A.8.27 evidence in order?
The time depends on how much of the design practice already exists in writing. Teams that already run design reviews, keep architecture decision records and apply consistent authentication and logging patterns need less time to connect them to named principles. Teams without any of these need to define principles, agree them with leadership, retrofit a sample of current systems and then build the habit into new projects. Other drivers include the number of product lines, the number of teams that design systems, and whether the organization is also preparing for a certification audit at the same time. Ask a provider for a written plan that sets out the sample systems, the review points and the evidence to be produced before any timeline is agreed.
Can adopting a secure design framework alone satisfy A.8.27?
No, adopting a framework on its own does not meet A.8.27 because the control asks the organization to establish, document, maintain and apply its own principles to its own system development. A published framework or reference architecture can be a useful source for those principles, and NIST's crosswalk relates A.8.27 to SP 800-53 controls SA-8 and SA-17, but NIST cautions that mapped controls are not always equivalent. An assessor will look for the organization's adopted list, evidence that the list is applied in real projects, and records that it is reviewed. Confirm with your certification body how it expects an external framework to be tailored and recorded.
What does A.8.27 require from engineering leads?
Engineering leads must agree the principles, make them part of design and review practice, and be willing to stop or change work that does not meet them. In practice this means naming the security principles that apply to their systems, including design expectations such as least privilege, defense in depth and secure defaults, and checking designs against them before build starts. Leads also need to record deviations and accept them through a named risk owner. Assessors usually ask for proof that a lead reviewed a specific design, so leads should keep review notes in a version-controlled system. Organizations can support this with a self-hosted wiki such as XWiki, which keeps a history of every change to a page.
How does A.8.27 relate to A.8.25 and A.8.28?
A.8.27 sets the engineering principles, A.8.25 covers the secure development life cycle that applies them across phases, and A.8.28 covers secure coding practices that implement them at the code level. The three controls depend on each other: principles without a life cycle process are hard to apply consistently, and coding standards without agreed design principles tend to drift. Evidence for A.8.27 often overlaps with A.8.25 design reviews and with A.8.28 code review records, so teams can reuse the same artifacts if they label them clearly. Tools such as GitLab protected branches, which restrict who can push or merge, and Semgrep, which can run in CI/CD pipelines, can supply code-level evidence for the related controls. Confirm with an assessor how they want overlapping evidence mapped to each control.
How DeployOpen approaches A.8.27 engagements
The sequence below turns the organization's engineering principles into a written scope, self-hosted tooling that produces design and code evidence, and an evidence structure the organization owns after handover. DeployOpen prepares the systems and records, and an independent auditor or certification body is the only party that issues reports or certificates.
Agree the written scope of systems
DeployOpen and the client list the systems, repositories, development teams and environments that fall under A.8.27 and the principles that will govern them. The client confirms which teams build, buy or configure each system, and which parts sit with outsourced developers. The engagement is fixed-scope, so the scope, deliverables and timeline are written down before work starts and the quote follows from that document. Done means a signed scope statement that names each in-scope system and its owner.
Confirm the principles with system owners
The client's security and architecture leads review the engineering principles that apply to the scoped systems, such as least privilege, defense in depth, secure defaults and fail-safe behavior. DeployOpen drafts the wording from the client's existing standards and gaps, and the client approves or amends each principle. The organization owns the final text, since it is the organization's control and not a DeployOpen policy. Done means an approved principles document with a version number, an owner and a review date set by the client.
Set up self-hosted design record storage
DeployOpen deploys a self-hosted wiki in the client's own infrastructure, such as XWiki, to hold architecture decisions, threat models and principle mappings. Every page change is kept under version control, so the record shows what changed, when and by whom, and earlier versions can be compared or restored. The client decides who can edit and who can approve, and access follows the client's identity arrangements. Done means a working instance with the principles and design templates loaded and a tested restore of a prior version.
Enforce review rules in source control
DeployOpen configures the client's self-hosted code platform, such as GitLab Community Edition, so that protected branches restrict who can push or merge, direct pushes are blocked where the client chooses, and force pushes stay disabled unless explicitly allowed. These settings give a recorded path from design decision to code change. The client confirms which roles approve merges and whether security review is required for specific repositories. Done means branch rules are applied to each in-scope repository and a test push confirms the restriction works.
Add automated code checks to the pipeline
DeployOpen adds Semgrep Community Edition to the client's CI/CD pipeline with community or custom rules for the languages the scoped systems use, including checks that reflect the agreed principles, such as rules against hardcoded secrets or unsafe defaults. Findings are routed to the owning team, and the client decides which findings block a merge. Semgrep's supported languages should be confirmed against the client's actual stack before rules are written. Done means each scoped repository runs the scan on every change and the client has a documented triage rule for findings.
Map principles to evidence in a register
DeployOpen builds a register that links each approved principle to the design record, the branch rule, the code check and the review that shows it was applied, with a named owner for each link. For principles that cannot be shown through tooling, such as threat modeling sessions, the register points to meeting records or sign-offs. The register follows the structure the client's auditor expects, and DeployOpen does not decide what the auditor will accept. Done means every principle has at least one traceable item of evidence, and gaps are logged with owners.
Hand over ownership and run a sample review
DeployOpen walks the client's staff through the wiki, the branch rules, the pipeline results and the register, and runs one sample review in which the client's team traces a recent change back to its principle. The client then takes over ownership of the principles, the access settings and the review cadence. DeployOpen can also support the client through an ongoing retainer, which is optional and priced separately. Done means the client's named owners have run the sample review and signed the handover, and an independent auditor or certification body, not DeployOpen, is the party that assesses and reports on the evidence.
