Improving Developer Experience & Engagement in Application Security

Security tooling often introduces friction into the software development lifecycle. Developers are asked to interpret large volumes of findings, investigate unclear upgrade paths, and remediate issues without sufficient context about deployment impact or fixability.

Heeler is designed to reduce that friction by embedding contextual security controls and guidance directly into existing engineering workflows. The goal is not to increase findings, but to improve clarity, precision, and execution.

This document outlines how Heeler approaches developer experience across three key areas:

• Pre-commit checks
• Pull request guardrails
• Context-rich ticketing and remediation guidance

Pre-Commit Checks via CLI (Shift Local)

Security feedback is most effective when delivered early and locally. Pre-commit checks provide security feedback at the earliest possible point in the development lifecycle: before code is pushed, reviewed, or built in CI.

Pre-commit checks are effective not just because they run early, but because they shift control to the developer.

When validation happens locally:

• The developer sees the issue first.
• They can fix it immediately.
• No external team is alerted by default.
• No ticket is automatically created.

This preserves autonomy. Instead of security being something that “happens to them” later in CI or through a ticket, it becomes something they can resolve on their own terms.

Immediate Feedback in Local Context

When checks run locally via CLI:

• Feedback happens in the same environment where the change was made.
• Fixes can be applied immediately, without reopening work later.

Local validation reduces cognitive load and shortens resolution time.

Preventing Downstream Rework

Issues caught pre-commit:

• Don’t fail CI builds.
• Don’t block pull request reviews.
• Don’t require back-and-forth with AppSec.
• Don’t generate avoidable Jira tickets.

This avoids the common pattern:

1. Code merges and security debt and risk is created
2. CI fails or scanner flags an issue
3. A ticket is created
4. Work is reprioritized
5. A fix PR is opened

Pre-commit validation collapses this cycle into a single development step.

Pre-Commit Checks and Secrets

Secrets are uniquely high-impact because once they are committed to a repository, remediation becomes expensive and disruptive. Even if removed in a later commit, the secret remains in the repository history unless explicitly purged. A single committed credential can require:

• Rewriting Git history (not recommended or easy to do)
• Rotating or invalidating the exposed secret

Pre-commit checks via CLI prevent this scenario entirely by detecting secrets before they are committed. This shifts remediation from a cross-team incident response effort to a simple local fix, delete the secret, move it to a secure store, and continue working.

For secrets specifically, pre-commit validation is not just about shifting left, it eliminates a class of avoidable operational and security overhead altogether.

Guardrails Integrated into Git Pull Requests

PR guardrails act as the structured backstop by introducing universal (or targeted), contextual enforcement inside the pull request itself.

Earlier Signal, Lower Cost

Instead of discovering issues only after CI runs:

• Developers see guardrail violations directly in the PR.
• Feedback is tied to the exact change that introduced the issue.
• Remediation can happen before the build cycle completes.

This reduces the cost of failure and shortens iteration loops.

CI remains the final enforcement mechanism, but PR guardrails significantly reduce the volume of avoidable CI failures.

Shared Visibility During Review

PR guardrails create a collaborative moment:

• Developers understand the impact of their changes.
• Reviewers see security implications alongside code.
• AppSec policies are applied transparently.

Preventing Downstream Rework

Instead of security feedback appearing after merge, it becomes part of the review discussion..

Issues caught during the PR:

• Don’t require back-and-forth with AppSec.
• Don’t generate avoidable Jira tickets.

This avoids the common pattern:

6. Code merges and security debt and risk is created
7. Scanner flags an issue
8. A ticket is created
9. Work is reprioritized
10. A fix PR is opened\

Addressing Backlog and Emergent Open Source Risk

Most organizations operate with:

• An existing backlog of unresolved findings
• Ongoing research that reclassifies or elevates previously known issues

This creates two parallel challenges:

1. Managing historical backlog
2. Responding to newly emergent risk

Both require structured ticketing and clear remediation guidance. 

For developers to meaningfully engage with security remediation, tickets must be actionable, not investigative. When issues require tracking across teams or sprints, Heeler integrates with Jira to create enriched tickets.

Tickets include:

• Affected repositories and services
• Full dependency path context
• Deterministic upgrade recommendations
• Fixability analysis

A key differentiator is fixability analysis. Not all issues can be resolved with a simple upgrade due to version constraints or dependency conflicts.

Heeler evaluates:

• Whether an upgrade path exists.
• Which upgrade path minimizes development effort while maximizing security impact.
• Whether the upgrade introduces breaking changes.
• Whether conflicts exist in the dependency graph.

In practice, this means Heeler performs the research that would otherwise fall on the developer. This significantly reduces investigation time, failed remediation attempts, and stalled tickets caused by ambiguity.

Deterministic Upgrade Guidance

Traditional security tools frequently recommend upgrading to the “latest version” without validating compatibility.

Heeler analyzes the full dependency graph and build context to provide:

• Specific version-to-version upgrade paths
• Confirmation that the recommended version resolves the issue
• Detection of dependency conflicts before changes are made
• Clear identification of non-fixable scenarios

This supports more predictable remediation and reduces repeated CI failures caused by incompatible upgrades.

Overall Outcome

Improving developer experience in application security requires more than shifting left. It requires:

• Local control and autonomy.
• Contextual guardrails during review.
• Execution-ready remediation guidance.
• Deterministic upgrade paths validated against real dependency graphs.
• Clear handling of backlog and emergent risk.

When security feedback is precise, contextual, and aligned with normal development workflows, developers engage — not because they are forced to, but because the work is clear, actionable, and predictable.

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