---
title: "Academy: CMMC and NIST 800-171 Guides"
description: "Long-form guides to CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-171, cloud security for defense contractors, and why an alert is not a record. Each guide sealed on the date shown."
url: https://policycortex.com/academy
sealed: 2026-03-17
amended: 2026-03-17
register: academy
records: 3
digest: sha3:d4eddf0846408d6001ad4b3e80273541769fbfb244e3942f3eede09229a5fb6c
---

# The academy: long-form guides to CMMC and NIST 800-171

Register / Academy

The academy holds the long-form guides: CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-171, cloud security for defense contractors, and why an alert is not a record. Each guide covers one subject end to end and is sealed on the date shown. Start here if the requirements are new to you; the blog carries the dated updates.

5 entries · Latest sealed 2026-03-17

## Guides, newest first

| Sealed | Guide | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-03-17 | [What Is Autonomous Cloud Governance: The Complete Guide](https://policycortex.com/academy/autonomous-cloud-governance): Autonomous cloud governance is the discipline of continuously detecting, deciding, and remediating cloud configuration, compliance, and cost issues without manual intervention. | 8 min |
| 2026-03-17 | [What Is Autonomous Remediation and Why Alerting Is Not Enough](https://policycortex.com/academy/autonomous-remediation): Autonomous remediation is the capability to automatically detect, decide, and fix cloud infrastructure issues without human intervention for each event. | 9 min |
| 2026-03-17 | [Cloud Security for Defense Contractors: The Definitive Guide](https://policycortex.com/academy/cloud-security-defense-contractors): Defense contractors face unique cloud security requirements (CMMC, DFARS, ITAR, FedRAMP, and classified program constraints) that commercial cloud security tools weren't designed to address. | 10 min |
| 2026-03-17 | [The Complete Guide to CMMC 2.0 Compliance in 2026](https://policycortex.com/academy/cmmc-2-compliance-guide): CMMC 2.0 is now enforced in DoD contracts. | 10 min |
| 2026-03-17 | [NIST 800-171 Compliance: From Manual Checklists to Autonomous Enforcement](https://policycortex.com/academy/nist-800-171-compliance): NIST SP 800-171 defines 110 security requirements for protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in non-federal systems. | 10 min |

## Related records

Guides and articles describe the work. The evidence that work produces is described in three proof pages and one architecture page.

- **proof.state**: [Proof of State](https://policycortex.com/proof/state). What the environment was, as of a date someone else picks: point-in-time records, content hashed and chained.
- **proof.change**: [Proof of Change](https://policycortex.com/proof/change). Who or what altered the environment, under what authority, with before and after state hashes.
- **proof.agency**: [Proof of Agency](https://policycortex.com/proof/agency). What a machine was permitted to do before it acted, what it did, and what would have stopped it.
- **architecture**: [Architecture](https://policycortex.com/architecture). How the chain is built and where it lives: inside your tenant, with no egress of evidence.

When the guide is read, inspect the record it describes. [Request Access](https://app.policycortex.com/auth?mode=request-access) · [Book a call](https://policycortex.com/book)

## Register colophon

| Seq | Label | SHA3-256 | Prev |
|---|---|---|---|
| REC 0000 | HEAD | 656c30224805 | 05670038851c |
| REC 0001 | ENTRIES | 65a627406346 | 656c30224805 |
| REC 0002 | RELATED RECORDS | d4eddf084640 | 65a627406346 |

Head sha3:d4eddf0846408d6001ad4b3e80273541769fbfb244e3942f3eede09229a5fb6c. Each digest is SHA3-256 over the previous digest, the register key, the record label, and the record copy; a second party can recompute it from this document.