grceng.academy
Review lab 40 bonus XP

Review the control pipelines before the audit window

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Objectives

Six controls run in CI. The engineering lead says all six are automated and wants them listed as engineered in the audit narrative.

Automated is not the bar. Accept the pipelines that would still demonstrate the control six months from now; reject the rest and name the stage that fails.

Verdicts are accept or reject. Every rejection needs one reason code from: no-negative-test | undocumented-bypass | advisory-gate | evidence-on-pass-only.

Pipeline summary (per control)

P-1  CC-STORAGE-PUBLIC | tests: 6 positive, 2 negative, fixtures pinned | gate: blocking, fail-closed | evidence: emitted pass and fail with control id, run id, population
P-2  CC-MFA-ADMIN | tests: 4 positive, 0 negative | gate: blocking | evidence: emitted both outcomes with control id and run id
P-3  CC-ENCRYPT-VOL | tests: 5 positive, 3 negative | gate: blocking, but SKIP_POLICY_CHECKS=true set in the workflow 11 weeks ago, no ticket, no end date
P-4  CC-LOG-RETAIN | tests: 4 positive, 2 negative | gate: advisory: prints a warning, never fails the build | evidence: emitted both outcomes
P-5  CC-KEY-ROTATE | tests: 5 positive, 2 negative | gate: blocking, fail-closed | evidence: emitted on pass only, failing runs stop at the gate and write nothing
P-6  CC-VULN-CRIT | tests: 6 positive, 3 negative, fixtures pinned | gate: blocking, fail-closed | evidence: emitted both outcomes with control id, run id, population

Checks the server runs (3)

  • Every line in the fixture carries a verdict
  • Accept and reject land on the right lines
  • Each rejection cites a valid reason code

Check names are all you see here: the expectations that decide pass or fail, and the reference solution, stay on the server.

Step-by-step hints

The guided walkthrough, in full. It is free: no XP cost, and it does not touch the paid hint ladder or the reveal gate.

  1. Step 1

    Read the request before the artefact

    Before judging, fix the question you will ask of every row: if this pipeline ran on the day of the incident, would it have said no, and would there be a record that it did?

  2. Step 2

    Judge every line, including the boring ones

    Six pipelines, six verdicts. Two are genuinely engineered; the audit narrative needs to know which so the other four are fixed rather than described.

    Every line in the fixture carries a verdict

  3. Step 3

    Separate what is wrong from what is merely ugly

    A suite with no negative case proves the evaluator runs, not that it can deny: treat that as a failing pipeline no matter how green it looks.

    Then the gate: a warning nobody must act on and a permanent skip flag are the same outcome by different routes. Last, evidence: written on pass only is a record of the good days.

    Accept and reject land on the right lines

  4. Step 4

    Say why, in the vocabulary the programme uses

    Name the stage that fails, not the pipeline's general maturity: each defect has a different owner and a different fix.

    Each rejection cites a valid reason code

Rules summary

  • XP on pass

    40 bonus XP the first time every check goes green.

  • Paid hints

    2 available. Each costs 25% of the lab XP (about 10 XP).

  • Reveal solution

    Scores 0 XP and unlocks only after 3 check runs.

  • Attempt cap

    60 check runs per learner. The runner warns you in the last 10.

  • Drafts

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  • Walkthrough

    Always free and never penalised: use it before spending a hint.