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Cortex Cloud step configuration

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You can scan container images and ingest results from Cortex Cloud (Palo Alto Networks).

note

This scanner is currently behind the feature flag STO_STEP_PALETTE_CORTEX_CLOUD. Contact Harness Support to enable this feature.

Important notes​

The following topics contain useful information for setting up scanner integrations in STO:

Cortex Cloud step settings for STO​

The recommended workflow is to add a Cortex Cloud step to a Security or Build stage and then configure it as described below.

Scan​

Scan Mode​

  • Orchestration Configure the step to run a scan and then ingest, normalize, and deduplicate the results.

Scan Configuration​

The predefined configuration to use for the scan. All scan steps have at least one configuration.

Target​

Type​

The target type to scan for vulnerabilities.

  • Container Image Scan the layers, libraries, and packages in a container image.

Target and variant detection​

When Auto is enabled for container images, the step detects the target and variant using the Container Image Name and Tag/Digest defined in the step or runtime input.

Note the following:

  • Auto is not available when the Scan Mode is Ingestion.
  • By default, Auto is selected when you add the step. You can change this setting if needed.

Name​

The identifier for the target, such as codebaseAlpha or jsmith/myalphaservice. Descriptive target names make it much easier to navigate your scan data in the STO UI.

It is good practice to specify a baseline for every target.

Variant​

The identifier for the specific variant to scan. This is usually the branch name, image tag, or product version. Harness maintains a historical trend for each variant.

Container image​

Registry Type​

Select where the container image is stored:

  • Harness: The image is stored in the Harness Artifact Registry.
  • Third-Party: The image is stored in a third-party registry such as Docker Hub, Amazon ECR, Google Container Registry, or Azure Container Registry.
  • Local: The image is available locally in this stage (for example, built in a previous step).

Registry​

When Registry Type is Harness, select the Harness Artifact Registry connector where the image is stored. You must also specify the Image Path for the image you want to scan.

Image Path​

When Registry Type is Harness, enter the path to the image in Harness Artifact Registry, including the tag or digest. For example: my-org/my-service:latest or my-org/my-service@sha256:abc123...

Type​

When Registry Type is Third-Party or Local, select the registry or image source type.

The registry type where the image is stored:

  • Docker v2 A registry that uses the Docker Registry v2 API such as Docker Hub, Google Container Registry, or Google Artifact Registry. STO will automatically pull and scan the container image or OCI/Docker archive.

  • AWS ECR Set your AWS ECR connector with image details. STO will automatically pull and scan the container image or OCI/Docker archive.

  • Jfrog Artifactory Set your Jfrog Artifactory connector with image details. STO will automatically pull and scan the container image or OCI/Docker archive.

  • Local Image in this Stage Scan a local image built and stored within the context of the current stage (via /var/run/docker.sock registered as a stage level volume mount). For this, you will need to configure Docker-in-Docker as a background step. STO will identify and scan the container image matching the step configuration inside the Docker-in-Docker background within that stage.

  • Local OCI/Docker archive in this Stage Scan an OCI or Docker archive created and stored within the current stage. STO will scan the archive based on the path configured in the workspace field during the step. Ensure that the path to which the archive is saved is a shared volume mount.

Domain​

When Registry Type is Third-Party, enter the URL of the registry that contains the image to scan. Examples include:

  • docker.io
  • app.harness.io/registry
  • us-east1-docker.pkg.dev

Name​

When Registry Type is Third-Party, specify the image name. For non-local images, you also need to specify the image repository. Example: jsmith/myalphaservice Example: jsmith/myalphaservice

Tag/Digest​

The image tag or digest. Examples: latest, 1.2.3, @sha256:abc123...

Access Id​

The username to log in to the image registry.

Access Token​

The access token used to log in to the image registry. This is usually a password or an API key.

You should create a Harness text secret with your encrypted token and reference the secret using the format <+secrets.getValue("container-access-id")>. For more information, go to Add and Reference Text Secrets.

Authentication​

To authenticate with Cortex Cloud, you need an API key from your Cortex XDR console.

Generate an API key in Cortex XDR
  1. In Cortex XDR, go to Settings > Configurations > Integrations > API Keys.
  2. Select + New Key and choose API Key Type: Advanced.
  3. (Optional) Set an expiration date for the key.
  4. Select the desired access level and click Generate.
  5. Copy the API key immediately — you cannot view it again after closing.
  6. Note the ID number from the API Keys table — this is your Access ID.
  7. Right-click your API key and select View Examples to find your FQDN for the Domain field.

Domain​

The Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN) for your Cortex Cloud API endpoint. This is a unique host and domain name associated with your tenant.

The Domain uses the following format:

https://api-<tenant>.xdr.<region>.paloaltonetworks.com

For example: https://api-hsto.xdr.in.paloaltonetworks.com

To find your Domain:

  1. In Cortex XDR, go to Settings > Configurations > Integrations > API Keys.
  2. Right-click your API key and select View Examples.
  3. Copy the base URL from the CURL example (e.g., https://api-{fqdn}/public_api/v1/...).

Access ID​

The API Key ID from your Cortex XDR console. This is the numeric ID shown in the ID column of the API Keys table.

This value is used as the x-xdr-auth-id header for API authentication.

Create a Harness text secret and reference it using an expression such as <+secrets.getValue("project.access_id")>. Go to Add and reference text secrets to create the secret.

Access Token​

The API Key generated from your Cortex XDR console. This is the key you copied when creating the API key.

This value is used as the Authorization header for API authentication.

Create a Harness text secret and reference it using an expression such as <+secrets.getValue("project.access_token")>. Go to Add and reference text secrets to create the secret.

Scan Tool​

Use Raw Scanner Severity​

This option allows you to configure the step to use the severity reported directly by the scanner. By default, STO assigns severity based on numeric scores (such as CVSS). When this option is enabled, STO bypasses its internal severity mapping and uses the severity levels reported by the scanner (e.g., Critical, High, Medium, Low).

To enable this behavior, check the Use Raw Scanner Severity field (recommended), or add ingest_tool_severity: true setting in the Settings section.

Ingestion File​

The path to your scan results when running an Ingestion scan, for example /shared/scan_results/myscan.latest.sarif.

  • The data file must be in a supported format for the scanner.

  • The data file must be accessible to the scan step. It's good practice to save your results files to a shared path in your stage. In the visual editor, go to the stage where you're running the scan. Then go to Overview > Shared Paths. You can also add the path to the YAML stage definition like this:

        - stage:
          spec:
            sharedPaths:
              - /shared/scan_results

Log Level​

The minimum severity of the messages you want to include in your scan logs. You can specify one of the following:

  • DEBUG
  • INFO
  • WARNING
  • ERROR

Additional CLI flags​

Use this field to run the scanner binary with additional flags supported by the external scanner.

caution

Passing additional CLI flags is an advanced feature. Harness recommends the following best practices:

  • Test your flags and arguments thoroughly before you use them in your Harness pipelines. Some flags might not work in the context of STO.

  • Don't add flags that are already used in the default configuration of the scan step.

    To check the default configuration, go to a pipeline execution where the scan step ran with no additional flags. Check the log output for the scan step. You should see a line like this:

    Command [ scancmd -f json -o /tmp/output.json ]

    In this case, don't add -f or -o to Additional CLI flags.

Fail on Severity​

Every STO scan step has a Fail on Severity setting. If the scan finds any vulnerability with the specified severity level or higher, the pipeline fails automatically. You can specify one of the following:

  • CRITICAL
  • HIGH
  • MEDIUM
  • LOW
  • INFO
  • NONE — Do not fail on severity

The YAML definition looks like this: fail_on_severity : critical # | high | medium | low | info | none

Settings​

You can use this field to specify environment variables for your scanner.

Add key value pairs under Settings (optional) to override Cortex Cloud timeout defaults. Harness configures default values in the backend as 600s. Add settings only when you need to override those defaults. Use the setting that matches your scan mode.

KeyExample value(in seconds)Scan mode
PRODUCT_CORTEX_XQL_POLL_TIMEOUT340Extraction
PRODUCT_CORTEX_CLI_TIMEOUT320Orchestration

PRODUCT_CORTEX_XQL_POLL_TIMEOUT: How long (in seconds) STO will keep polling Cortex Cloud for XQL query results before timing out. You can set this lower than the default to fail faster, or higher if your scans typically take longer.

PRODUCT_CORTEX_CLI_TIMEOUT: How long (in seconds) the Cortex CLI process can run in Orchestration mode before STO terminates it. Set this in Settings as an environment variable.

note

The Cortex CLI is pinned to version 0.33 in the STO scan image. Using any other version may cause unexpected behavior or break the integration.

Additional Configuration​

The fields under Additional Configuration vary based on the type of infrastructure. Depending on the infrastructure type selected, some fields may or may not appear in your settings. Below are the details for each field

Advanced settings​

In the Advanced settings, you can use the following options:

Proxy settings​

This step supports private network connectivity if you're using Harness Cloud infrastructure. For information on connectivity options, see Private network connectivity options. When using proxy configurations, the HTTPS_PROXY and HTTP_PROXY variables are automatically set to route traffic through the secure tunnel. If there are specific addresses that you want to bypass the proxy, you can define those in the NO_PROXY variable. This can be configured in the Settings of your step.

If you need to configure a different proxy, you can manually set the HTTPS_PROXY, HTTP_PROXY, and NO_PROXY variables in the Settings of your step.

Definitions of Proxy variables:​

  • HTTPS_PROXY: Specify the proxy server for HTTPS requests, example https://sc.internal.harness.io:30000
  • HTTP_PROXY: Specify the proxy server for HTTP requests, example http://sc.internal.harness.io:30000
  • NO_PROXY: Specify the domains as comma-separated values that should bypass the proxy. This allows you to exclude certain traffic from being routed through the proxy.