Enterprise Security Scanning Without the Enterprise Price Tag

The Problem

You want enterprise-grade security scanning in your CI/CD pipeline. GitHub tells you to use CodeQL. You enable it, push code, and see:

Please verify that the necessary features are enabled:
Advanced Security must be enabled for this repository to use code scanning.

GitHub Advanced Security costs $4/user/month for private repos.

For a team of 10, that's $480/year just for SAST. Add in secret scanning, dependency audits, and license compliance tools, and you're looking at thousands per year.

There's a better way.

The Solution: Free Tools That Match (or Beat) Paid Alternatives

After rebuilding our security pipeline from scratch, here's what we landed on:

Category	Paid Tool	Free Alternative	Coverage
SAST	CodeQL ($4/user/mo)	Semgrep	JS, TS, Python, Go, Java, Ruby, Solidity
Secrets	Gitleaks ($)	TruffleHog + grep	All secret patterns
Dependencies	Snyk Pro	npm/pip audit + Safety	Node.js + Python
Solidity	MythX ($)	Slither	Smart contract vulnerabilities
Licenses	FOSSA ($)	license-checker + pip-licenses	OSS compliance

Total cost: $0/month

Architecture Overview

Our security pipeline runs 8 parallel jobs:

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Security Scanning Workflow                │
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────┐ │
│  │   Semgrep   │  │   Secret    │  │  Dependency Audit   │ │
│  │    SAST     │  │   Scanning  │  │   (7 projects)      │ │
│  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────────────┘ │
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────┐  ┌─────────────────────┐ │
│  │   License   │  │   OWASP     │  │  Solidity Security  │ │
│  │ Compliance  │  │ Dep-Check   │  │    (Slither)        │ │
│  └─────────────┘  └─────────────┘  └─────────────────────┘ │
│                                                             │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐│
│  │              Security Summary + Issue Creation          ││
│  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘│
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Implementation

1. Semgrep SAST (Replaces CodeQL)

Semgrep is a fast, open-source SAST tool that supports 30+ languages. It runs in a container, requires no compilation, and has rule packs for everything.

semgrep:
  name: Semgrep Security Scan
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  container:
    image: semgrep/semgrep
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Run Semgrep
      run: semgrep ci --sarif --output=semgrep-results.sarif
      env:
        SEMGREP_RULES: >-
          p/security-audit
          p/secrets
          p/owasp-top-ten
          p/javascript
          p/typescript
          p/python
          p/react
          p/nextjs
          p/nodejs
          p/sql-injection
          p/xss
      continue-on-error: true

    - name: Upload SARIF
      uses: github/codeql-action/upload-sarif@v4
      with:
        sarif_file: semgrep-results.sarif

What it catches:

• SQL injection, XSS, command injection
• Hardcoded secrets
• Insecure deserialization
• Path traversal
• Framework-specific issues (React, Next.js, Express)

2. Multi-Layer Secret Scanning

Don't rely on a single tool. We use three layers:

secret-scan:
  name: Secret Scanning
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      with:
        fetch-depth: 0

    # Layer 1: TruffleHog (free, open source)
    - name: TruffleHog Secret Scan
      uses: trufflesecurity/trufflehog@main
      continue-on-error: true
      with:
        path: ./
        base: ""
        head: HEAD
        extra_args: --only-verified --json

    # Layer 2: Gitleaks (if you have license)
    - name: Gitleaks Scan
      if: env.GITLEAKS_LICENSE != ''
      uses: gitleaks/gitleaks-action@v2
      continue-on-error: true
      env:
        GITLEAKS_LICENSE: ${{ secrets.GITLEAKS_LICENSE }}

    # Layer 3: Custom grep patterns (catches what tools miss)
    - name: Custom Secret Pattern Check
      run: |
        PATTERNS=(
          "AKIA[0-9A-Z]{16}"              # AWS Access Key
          "ghp_[a-zA-Z0-9]{36}"           # GitHub PAT
          "sk-[a-zA-Z0-9]{48}"            # OpenAI key
          "xox[baprs]-[a-zA-Z0-9-]+"      # Slack tokens
          "-----BEGIN.*PRIVATE KEY-----"  # Private keys
        )

        for pattern in "${PATTERNS[@]}"; do
          if grep -rE "$pattern" --include="*.{js,ts,py,json}" . 2>/dev/null |
             grep -v node_modules | grep -v ".git"; then
            echo "::warning::Potential secret pattern detected"
          fi
        done

3. Dependency Audit (Multi-Language)

Our monorepo has Node.js (npm/pnpm) and Python projects. We audit all of them:

dependency-audit:
  name: Dependency Audit - ${{ matrix.project }}
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  strategy:
    fail-fast: false
    matrix:
      include:
        - project: frontend
          path: apps/frontend
          manager: pnpm
        - project: backend
          path: apps/backend
          manager: pip
        - project: smart-contracts
          path: contracts
          manager: npm
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Check project exists
      id: check
      run: |
        if [ -d "${{ matrix.path }}" ]; then
          echo "exists=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        else
          echo "exists=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        fi

    # Node.js audit
    - name: npm audit
      if: steps.check.outputs.exists == 'true' && matrix.manager == 'npm'
      working-directory: ${{ matrix.path }}
      run: |
        npm ci --ignore-scripts || npm install --ignore-scripts
        npm audit --audit-level=moderate --json > audit-report.json || true
      continue-on-error: true

    # Python audit (pip-audit + Safety)
    - name: pip audit + safety
      if: steps.check.outputs.exists == 'true' && matrix.manager == 'pip'
      working-directory: ${{ matrix.path }}
      run: |
        pip install pip-audit safety
        pip-audit -r requirements.txt --format json > audit-report.json || true
        safety check -r requirements.txt --output json > safety-report.json || true
      continue-on-error: true

4. Solidity Smart Contract Security

If you're building blockchain applications, Slither is essential:

solidity-security:
  name: Solidity Security Scan
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Check for Solidity files
      id: check-sol
      run: |
        if find . -name "*.sol" -not -path "*/node_modules/*" | head -1 | grep -q .; then
          echo "has_solidity=true" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        else
          echo "has_solidity=false" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
        fi

    - name: Install Slither
      if: steps.check-sol.outputs.has_solidity == 'true'
      run: pip install slither-analyzer

    - name: Run Slither
      if: steps.check-sol.outputs.has_solidity == 'true'
      run: |
        for dir in contracts Blockchain/*/contracts; do
          if [ -d "$dir" ]; then
            cd "$dir/.."
            npm install 2>/dev/null || true
            slither . --json slither-report.json || true
            cd - > /dev/null
          fi
        done
      continue-on-error: true

What Slither catches:

• Reentrancy vulnerabilities
• Unchecked return values
• Integer overflow/underflow
• Access control issues
• Gas optimization opportunities

5. License Compliance

Avoid legal issues by checking for copyleft licenses:

license-check:
  name: License Compliance
  runs-on: ubuntu-latest
  steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v4

    - name: Install tools
      run: |
        npm install -g license-checker
        pip install pip-licenses

    - name: Check Node.js licenses
      run: |
        for dir in apps/*; do
          if [ -f "$dir/package.json" ]; then
            cd "$dir"
            npm install --ignore-scripts 2>/dev/null || true
            license-checker --summary
            cd - > /dev/null
          fi
        done
      continue-on-error: true

    - name: Check for copyleft
      run: |
        if grep -riE "(GPL|AGPL|LGPL)" . --include="*LICENSE*" 2>/dev/null |
           grep -v node_modules | head -10; then
          echo "::warning::Copyleft licenses detected - verify compliance"
        fi

The Complete Workflow

Here's the full workflow that ties everything together:

name: Security Scanning

on:
  push:
    branches: [main, dev]
  pull_request:
    branches: [main, dev]
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 2 * * *'  # Daily at 2 AM UTC
  workflow_dispatch:

permissions:
  contents: read
  security-events: write
  pull-requests: write
  issues: write

jobs:
  semgrep:
    # ... (SAST scanning)

  dependency-audit:
    # ... (Multi-project audit)

  secret-scan:
    # ... (3-layer secret scanning)

  license-check:
    # ... (License compliance)

  solidity-security:
    # ... (Smart contract scanning)

  security-summary:
    name: Security Summary
    needs: [semgrep, dependency-audit, secret-scan, license-check]
    if: always()
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - name: Create summary
        run: |
          echo "## Security Scan Results" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo "| Check | Result |" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo "|-------|--------|" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo "| Semgrep | ${{ needs.semgrep.result }} |" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo "| Dependencies | ${{ needs.dependency-audit.result }} |" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo "| Secrets | ${{ needs.secret-scan.result }} |" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY
          echo "| Licenses | ${{ needs.license-check.result }} |" >> $GITHUB_STEP_SUMMARY

Results

After implementing this pipeline:

Before:

• CodeQL failing (needed $4/user/month)
• No secret scanning
• Manual dependency audits
• No Solidity scanning

After:

• 8 parallel security jobs
• 30+ Semgrep rule packs
• 3-layer secret detection
• Multi-language dependency audits
• Smart contract vulnerability scanning
• License compliance checking
• Automated issue creation for failures
• $0/month

Key Takeaways

1. Don't pay for CodeQL - Semgrep is free and covers more languages
2. Layer your secret scanning - No single tool catches everything
3. Use continue-on-error: true - Security scans shouldn't block deployments for minor issues
4. Check if projects exist - Monorepos have dynamic project structures
5. Automate issue creation - Connect security findings to your workflow

Full Workflow File

The complete workflow is available as a GitHub Gist: security-scan.yml

Or copy the examples above directly into your .github/workflows/security-scan.yml.

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Resources

• Semgrep Rules Registry
• TruffleHog Documentation
• Slither Documentation
• OWASP Dependency-Check
• Safety CLI

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This blog post is based on a real production implementation. The workflow described here scans 7 projects across 3 languages in under 10 minutes, completely free.