The Extensible Configuration Checklist Description Format (XCCDF) is a specification language for writing security checklists, benchmarks, and related kinds of documents. An XCCDF document represents a structured collection of security configuration rules for some set of target systems.
The specification is designed to support information interchange, document generation, organizational and situational tailoring, automated compliance testing, and compliance scoring. The specification also defines a data model and format for storing results of benchmark compliance testing.
The intent of XCCDF is to provide a uniform foundation for expression of security checklists, benchmarks, and other configuration guidance, and thereby foster more widespread application of good security practices.