Security

A docs site is a public app, so the defaults assume the public internet: a strict Content-Security-Policy, rate limits on everything that costs money or compute, and a hard rule that secrets live in the environment, never in config.

Content-Security-Policy

Every response carries a strict CSP: content and assets from 'self', no external frames, no object embeds. Most sites never touch it. When yours embeds something, add sources in config:

security:
  csp:
    imgSrc:
      - https://img.example-status.com
    frameSrc:
      - https://www.youtube-nocookie.com

Sources add to the policy; nothing can remove or replace the baseline. Malformed tokens (whitespace, ;) are dropped rather than trusted, so a config typo cannot open script-src. Operators can add sources at image build time with the READSMITH_CSP_* variables; they are read at build, not at container start.

Rate limits

On by default, sized for a public deployment, applied per client IP:

Ask AI spends your model credits, so it gets the tight bucket. Adjust in docs.yaml under ai.limits, or at deploy time with the READSMITH_RATE_LIMIT_* variables, which win. Behind a proxy, set READSMITH_TRUSTED_IP_HEADER so buckets follow real clients; the reverse proxy guide covers the one way to get this wrong.

Secrets

• Model keys are environment-only. docs.yaml has no key fields at all, so a committed config cannot leak one.
• Keys never reach the client: answers stream through the server, and hydration payloads carry no configuration.
• .env stays out of version control; .env.example documents the shape with no values worth stealing.

Content trust

Author-supplied HTML in pages runs through a trust-tiered sanitizer. A site you build yourself runs at owner trust; the tiers exist so multi-author and hosted setups can be stricter without a different pipeline.

What to verify after deploying

1. Headers

   curl -sI https://docs.example.com | grep -iE "content-security-policy|x-frame-options"

   Both should be present on every response.

2. Rate limiting

   Send eleven quick Ask AI requests; the eleventh should answer 429 with a Retry-After header.

3. No secrets in the page

   curl -s https://docs.example.com | grep -ci "api_key\|apikey"