How to Build an Effective SAST Triage Workflow

How to Build an Effective SAST Triage Workflow

Static Application Security Testing (SAST) tools are a crucial part of your secure development lifecycle. But without a structured triage workflow, these tools can quickly become a source of noise instead of insight.

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to build a triage process that filters out false positives, routes issues to the right teams, and ensures that actual vulnerabilities are fixed fast—with minimal friction.

Need an overview of why false positives happen in the first place? Start with What Causes False Positives in SAST Tools.

Why Triage Matters

Left unmanaged, SAST findings pile up in Jira, slow down releases, and frustrate developers. A repeatable triage process helps:

• Reduce alert fatigue
• Improve mean time to remediate (MTTR)
• Maintain compliance with audit requirements
• Strengthen trust between security and engineering

If your team is still sifting through alerts manually, it’s time to operationalize your triage. For a broader strategy, see our guide to reducing false positives in SAST.

4-Stage SAST Triage Workflow

1. Automated Pre-Triage

Filter out findings that are clearly safe or irrelevant using:

• Known-good libraries or frameworks
• Low-severity rules (e.g., informational only)
• Dependency findings that are not reachable from production code

SAST tools with customizable rule sets — or AI-powered solutions like Mobb — can help automate this stage.

2. Contextual Review

Review the remaining findings with an understanding of how the application actually works. Ask:

• Is this input already sanitized elsewhere?
• Does this part of the code execute in production?
• Is this component isolated behind controls?

Tag each issue with metadata like CWE, severity, asset sensitivity, and reachability. This supports risk scoring and prioritization — covered in more depth here:
How AppSec Teams Can Prioritize Real Vulnerabilities Faster.

3. Developer Routing

Assign each validated finding to the developer most familiar with the affected code. This improves speed and accuracy of fixes and helps build developer ownership of security issues.

Use integrated tooling to add findings to developer workflows (e.g., Jira, GitHub Issues) with context included.

4. Security Validation

Before marking an issue as a false positive or closing it out, the AppSec team should review the justification. False positives should never just disappear—they should be documented with:

• Reviewer name and timestamp
• Reason for suppression (e.g., dead code, false path, architectural control)
• Reference to secure coding standard, when possible

For documentation practices and dashboard tagging recommendations, revisit: How to Reduce False Positives in SAST.

Tools That Support Triage

Some SAST tools provide better triage capabilities than others. Features to look for include:

• Configurable rule suppression
• IDE or SCM integrations
• Built-in metadata tagging
• Integration with ticketing systems

Need help choosing the right tool? Compare leading platforms here: Top SAST Tools Compared by False Positive Rate.

Final Thoughts

A well-designed triage workflow transforms SAST from a noisy security scanner into a powerful quality gate. It saves time, improves visibility, and ensures that developers focus on what matters most: fixing real vulnerabilities.

To go one step further, explore how AI can automate triage and even generate safe code fixes: Using AI to Automatically Triage and Fix SAST Findings.