Security checklist for AI-generated apps: auth, RBAC, payments
AI now writes your first draft: newsletter platform builder AI, agency tools for rapid prototyping, and code scaffolding automation all ship features in hours. Speed is useful; security is non-negotiable. Use this battle-tested checklist to gate models, templates, and glue code before anything reaches production.
Identity and authentication
- Adopt OIDC with PKCE; disable implicit flow. Enforce MFA for admins and finance roles.
- Use short-lived sessions with sliding refresh tokens; bind sessions to device and IP reputation.
- Support passwordless (WebAuthn or magic links) and rate-limit one-time codes.
- Scope OAuth tokens tightly; never let generators auto-grant wildcards.
- Centralize secret storage; rotate keys automatically and pin JWT signing algs.
RBAC and data boundaries
- Model roles and permissions explicitly; store them in a versioned policy registry.
- Apply tenant isolation at the database (schema or row-level security) and cache layers.
- Prefer allow-list policies; deny by default. Use a policy engine (OPA or Cedar) for evaluations.
- Gate AI-generated queries with ownership checks; fuzz with cross-tenant test data.
- Audit every permission change with who, what, why, and ticket link.
Payments and webhooks
- Keep card data out of your stack (SAQ-A posture). Tokenize; never log PAN or CVC.
- Verify webhook signatures and timestamps; require idempotency keys for all write ops.
- Map revenue events to roles: only billing admins can refund, finance can export.
- Alert on anomalies: rapid refunds, mismatched currency, or country risk lists.
Prompt-to-prod guardrails
- Force pull-request gates on code scaffolding automation; require security review templates.
- Run SAST, secrets scanning, and dependency audit in the same pipeline the generator triggers.
- Provide safe SDK wrappers so agency tools for rapid prototyping cannot bypass auth or logging.
- Threat-model prompts: ban instructions that create eval endpoints, wide SQL filters, or debug tokens.
Observability and response
- Emit structured, PII-redacted logs; tie request IDs across API, worker, and LLM calls.
- Maintain immutable audit trails for auth, RBAC, and payments; export to a SIEM.
- Set SLOs for auth latency and payment capture; page on regression, not only failure.
- Practice incident drills: key compromise, webhook replay, and role escalation.
Examples you can ship this week
- Newsletter platform builder AI: enforce "creator," "editor," "finance" roles; row-level drafts; only finance can view payouts; verify Stripe webhooks with rotating secrets.
- Agency prototype: publish a hardened auth starter, RBAC seed data, and CI checks so interns cannot merge unsafe LLM diffs.
- Internal tools: wrap database access with scoped service accounts; block SELECT * in generated SQL; snapshot policy diffs on deploy.
Final pre-launch checklist
- Auth hardened, MFA enforced, tokens scoped.
- RBAC tested with cross-tenant fuzzing.
- Payments tokenized, webhooks verified, idempotent.
- Generators gated by reviews and scanners.
- Logs redacted, audits immutable, drills practiced.
Ship faster, but always verify, limit, monitor, rotate.
