How to Run Coding Agents Safely Inside CI/CD Pipelines

This article provides a comprehensive guide on safely running coding agents inside CI/CD pipelines. It emphasizes treating the agent as an untrusted change producer by using ephemeral sandboxes, read-only repository access, tightly controlled network egress, and no deployment credentials. The workflow involves the agent producing a patch and evidence bundle, which is then verified by a clean runner before human review and approval. The pattern follows propose, verify, approve, promote, and rollback steps, using GitHub Actions as an example but applicable to other CI/CD systems. It covers security risks like prompt injection and hostile repository content, and advocates for maintaining pipeline authority through protected branches and separate trust zones.