Harden Backend

Nine controls that decide whether untrusted traffic breaks the service. Rules and rationale: harden-patterns.md. Code per track: harden-tracks.md. Baseline: security-baseline.md rules 4, 6, 7, 8 and 13. Seam paths: service-layout.md. The per-caller rate limit keys on the Principal of set-up-backend-auth; run that first. For a read-only review with severities and no changes, use audit-security.

1. Audit (change nothing)

Read the profile first; detect only what it leaves open (stack-profile.md).

cat .claude/stack-profile.md ~/.claude/stack-profile.md 2>/dev/null   # backend.track, package_manager, ci
ls src/transport/edge.ts internal/transport/httpapi/edge.go src/*/transport/edge.py internal/platform/safehttp src/*/platform/outbound.py 2>/dev/null

# Wildcard CORS (Hono / FastAPI / Go)
grep -rn -e "origin: '\*'" -e 'allow_origins=\["\*"\]' -e 'AllowedOrigins: \[\]string{"\*"}' --include='*.ts' --include='*.py' --include='*.go' . 2>/dev/null

# String-built SQL: SQL keywords inside template literals, f-strings or Sprintf
grep -rnE '(SELECT |INSERT INTO|UPDATE |DELETE FROM)' --include='*.ts' --include='*.py' --include='*.go' src internal 2>/dev/null | grep -E '\$\{|f"|Sprintf'

# Outbound calls with a variable URL (SSRF surface)
grep -rnE 'fetch\(|httpx\.|http\.Get\(' --include='*.ts' --include='*.py' --include='*.go' src internal 2>/dev/null

# Raw errors handed to clients
grep -rnE 'err\.message|str\(exc\)|err\.Error\(\)' --include='*.ts' --include='*.py' --include='*.go' src internal 2>/dev/null

# Body limits, deadlines, server timeouts
grep -rn 'bodyLimit\|MaxBytesReader\|MAX_BODY_BYTES' --include='*.ts' --include='*.go' --include='*.py' src internal 2>/dev/null
grep -rn 'http.Server{' --include='*.go' . 2>/dev/null   # no ReadHeaderTimeout beside it = no timeouts

# CI scanning
ls .github/workflows 2>/dev/null && grep -rlE 'gitleaks|osv-scanner|audit' .github/workflows 2>/dev/null

Each fetch/httpx/http.Get hit needs one question answered: is the URL hardcoded, or does request data reach it? Fill the checklist; the "where" column names the files you saw, the OWASP IDs follow harden-patterns.md:

2. Decide

• Controls missing: apply the delta for each, steps 4 to 6. Do not rewrite what works.
• A control present but weak (wildcard CORS, err.message to clients, string-built SQL, a server without timeouts): fix it in place with the matching rule from harden-patterns.md.
• Every row present and step 7 passes: report "already in place" and stop.

3. Detect track

One more question, answered from the audit grep: does the service call user-influenced URLs (webhooks, link previews, imports)? If it does not, skip the SSRF module and say so in the report: install it only when such a call first appears. Everything else applies regardless of the answer.

4. Install only what is missing

pnpm add hono-rate-limiter undici             # hono: limiter middleware; fetch with a connect-time guard (zod is already there)
go get github.com/rs/cors golang.org/x/time   # go: CORS allow-list; token-bucket rate limiter
uv add slowapi httpx                          # fastapi: per-route limiter; the client the SSRF module uses

Use the profile's package manager. Verify each line in stack-versions.md before you write it.

5. Generate the seams

Create from harden-tracks.md, skipping files that exist:

transport/edge                  CORS allow-list (outermost), secure headers, body cap, request deadline, limiter factory
transport decode (Go only)      JSON with unknown fields and trailing data rejected
platform outbound seam          the only way out to a URL the service did not hardcode
tests/unit                      SSRF refusals, rate limit, decode
.github/workflows/security.yml  secrets + dependency scanning, SHA-pinned actions

Paths follow service-layout.md.

6. Wire

1. Edge defaults on the app. Order matters: CORS outermost, so a preflight is answered before any body limit or deadline runs.
2. Body parsing through strict schemas. Unknown fields rejected, every string, array and number bounded.
3. Per-caller rate limit after authentication. The key is the principal, not the IP; tighter on login and token endpoints.
4. Deadline on the request context; server timeouts in main. net/http has none by default.
5. Error mapper. problem+json; the unknown error becomes a generic 500; its detail goes to the logger once; 405 keeps Allow; 404 for another tenant's rows.
6. SQL review. Every hit from the audit grep moves to a parameterized form; dynamic identifiers come from an allow-list map.
7. Outbound calls. A URL that is not hardcoded goes through the SSRF seam only.
8. CI. Commit .github/workflows/security.yml; keep the native audit of your track, delete the other two.

7. Verify

pnpm typecheck && pnpm vitest run   # hono
go vet ./... && go test ./...          # go
uv run mypy && uv run pytest           # fastapi

Expected: all green. Then manual checks against a running service, each with its expected result:

• a body over the cap: 413;
• a request with an unknown Origin: no access-control-allow-origin in the response;
• curl -si <URL>/healthz: response headers include content-security-policy, strict-transport-security, x-content-type-options;
• one request over the limit: 429 with Retry-After;
• the scanners, locally, with the docker commands from the workflow.

Then fuzz the contract with schemathesis (install: uvx schemathesis or pipx install schemathesis):

schemathesis run http://localhost:8299/openapi.json --checks all -n 25 --exclude-path '/documents/{doc_id}'

Expected on the FastAPI scaffold: 55 generated, 55 passed. The excluded path needs a token the fuzzer has no credentials for. On the unmodified scaffold the first run FAILED with TRACE returned 405 without required Allow header: the scaffold's StarletteHTTPException handler dropped the exception's headers. The fix (headers=dict(exc.headers) if exc.headers else None) is in the Python track. That finding is why the fuzzer is part of hardening: it breaks the HTTP contract in ways the test suite does not.

References

• harden-patterns.md: the nine controls, each justified and mapped to OWASP Top 10:2025.
• harden-tracks.md: edge, decode, SSRF and CI code for Hono, Go and FastAPI, plus the wiring deltas.
• set-up-backend-auth: authentication; the rate limit and the 404 rule build on it.
• security-baseline.md: the cross-stack floor this skill implements for services.
• audit-security: the read-only review to run when nothing should change yet.