Automate first the controls that reduce to a setting or a record you can query: MFA enforcement, device encryption, branch protection, user lists and cloud configuration. They are repetitive, easy to test daily and the most tedious to collect by hand. Leave judgment controls, like risk reviews, to people.
A simple scoring test
Score each control on three questions.
- Does a system already hold the answer? If yes, a check can read it.
- Is the control run often? Frequent controls produce the most manual evidence work.
- Is a pass or fail clear? If two reasonable people would disagree, automation will produce arguments, not answers.
Controls that score yes on all three go first.
Good early candidates
- Identity: MFA on for all accounts, no shared admin accounts, offboarded users disabled.
- Endpoints: disk encryption on, screen lock set, OS patched within your stated window.
- Source control: branch protection, required reviews, no direct pushes to main.
- Cloud: public storage blocked, logging on, encryption at rest set.
- Dependencies: a current inventory and a record of scans on each build.
Each of these has a settings page or API that returns a clear value.
Poor early candidates
Some controls look automatable but are not, at first:
- Risk assessments need people to judge likelihood and impact.
- Vendor reviews need a human to read the answers.
- Incident response tests need a real exercise and a written outcome.
- Policy quality cannot be checked by a script, though acknowledgments can.
You can still track the dates and owners for these, which is a useful half step.
Define pass and fail before you connect anything
Write one sentence per check. "All production repositories require at least one approving review before merge." Then decide the scope: which repositories, which accounts. Vague scope is the usual reason a check is green while a gap sits outside it.
Plan for the failures
A check that fails with no owner is noise. Name an owner per check and set an expectation for how fast they respond. Record the failure and the fix, because auditors like to see both.
Safeguard's compliance and evidence automation, together with its asset discovery, can help find systems that belong in scope. Choose checks that match your own control wording, and confirm with your auditor what they will accept.
After the first set runs cleanly for a quarter, review it. Which checks found real problems? Which never failed and perhaps test something too easy? Which failed for reasons that turned out to be wrong scope? Use those answers to pick the next batch. Growing the set slowly, based on what proved useful, keeps trust in the results high and the alert volume manageable.
Quick check
Should I automate everything at once?
No. Start with a handful, make sure the results are trusted, then expand. A pile of untrusted checks teaches people to ignore alerts.
Can automation prove a control was designed well?
No. It shows whether a setting or record matches what you defined. Design quality still needs human review.
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
