Security Checklist for AI-Generated Apps: Auth, RBAC, Payments
When a UI component generator or natural language programming tool ships your app skeleton in minutes, security debt can land in prod just as fast. Use this pragmatic checklist for anything built by a directory builder AI, chat-driven code agent, or low-code pipeline.
Identity and Authentication
- Use OIDC/OAuth2 with PKCE; never roll your own sessions. Store tokens httpOnly, secure, sameSite=strict.
- Short access token (5-15 min), refresh rotation with reuse detection; revoke on jti reuse.
- Enforce step-up MFA for payment, key rotation, and role elevation.
- Block public signups by default on enterprise tenants; require domain allowlists.
- Do not embed secrets in generated frontends; read from server-side env only.
RBAC and Data Scoping
- Server-side authorization only; deny by default. Never rely on hidden UI.
- Model tenants early: org_id on every table; add row-level policies or WHERE org_id = :ctx_org.
- Prefer permission sets over boolean flags; version them and migrate with seed scripts.
- Log authorization decisions (who, resource, action, effect) for audits.
Payments and Billing Safety
- Price comes from the server, not the client. Validate product_id and quantity against catalogs.
- Use idempotency keys on charge, refund, and invoice endpoints.
- Verify webhook signatures and replay windows; queue and retry with backoff.
- Require strong customer authentication where applicable; step-up before high-risk actions.
- Separate test and live keys; block test keys in production CI gates.
AI-Specific Guardrails
- Constrain tool usage: whitelist APIs, schemas, and maximum spend per request.
- Validate all AI output against JSON Schemas; reject on mismatch.
- Neutralize prompt injection by stripping HTML, blocking external URLs, and running in sandboxed workers.
- Add rate limits and circuit breakers on generation endpoints.
DevOps for Generated Code
- Automate SAST, SCA, and secrets scanning on every PR; fail on high severities.
- Pin dependencies, produce an SBOM, and sign artifacts; enforce reproducible builds.
- Centralize audit logs; partition PII, encrypt at rest, and rotate KMS keys.
Mini Case Studies
1) An admin portal produced by a UI component generator let "viewer" download billing exports. Fix: deny-by-default policy, scoped storage paths, and step-up for exports.
2) A directory builder AI created multi-tenant endpoints without org checks. Fix: add org_id to queries, apply row-level security, and test with cross-tenant fuzzing.
Verification Scripts and Tests
- Add unit tests asserting role gates at the controller and query layers; include negative cases.
- Create contract tests for auth headers, token audience, issuer, and clock skew.
- Use seed tenants to run happy-path and evil-path scenarios in CI, including webhook replays.
- Continuously scan infrastructure as code for public buckets, wide CIDRs, and open egress.
- For natural language programming pipelines, require human approvals for scopes and data sources.
Ship fast, but gate changes: treat AI output like interns with root access, always.
