How does Policy as Code (PaC) work in cloud governance?

Policy as Code (PaC) is a practice where security, compliance, and operational policies are defined and enforced through machine-readable code, allowing them to be versioned, tested, and automated just like application or infrastructure code. Tools such as Open Policy Agent (OPA), Azure Policy, and AWS Config enable organizations to automatically evaluate and enforce rules on cloud resources—for example, ensuring encryption is enabled or restricting resource types based on environment. This approach promotes consistency, minimizes human error, and helps teams detect and remediate policy violations early in the deployment lifecycle, ultimately improving governance and security posture.