SafeGate v6.4 / Security & Compliance Hardening

Harden the trust layer before stronger claims.

v6.4 defines the security and compliance hardening direction for SafeGate before any production API, broader pilot, or agent-ready claim.

The goal is simple: every receipt verification, access unlock, merchant record, and audit event must remain bounded, rate-limited, replay-aware, privacy-aware, and safe on failure.

30-Second v6.4 Summary

SafeGate hardening means: no secret exposure, no unsafe unlock, no unlogged verification, no stack trace leakage, no replay abuse, and no overclaim.

1. Hardening Checklist

Secrets

Secret Management

Service role keys, wallet passphrases, access tokens, API keys, and database strings must never appear in public responses, frontend code, screenshots, or logs.

Rotation

Secret Rotation Direction

Production design should include rotation playbooks for API keys, receipt signing secrets, service keys, webhook secrets, and compromised credentials.

Rate limit

Merchant/API Rate Limiting

Future rate limits should be scoped by merchant, API key, receipt ID, and suspicious behavior patterns, not only by IP address.

Replay

Replay Protection

Duplicate or replay-like verification attempts must preserve existing state, avoid new unlocks, and create audit-relevant events.

Errors

Safe Error Handling

500 errors must be generic and safe. No stack trace, Supabase/Postgres strings, env names, tokens, file paths, or provider payloads.

Audit

Audit Log Retention

Verification, mismatch, replay, rate limit, ambiguous state, and internal safe errors should become minimal audit events with retention policy direction.

Privacy

Privacy Boundary

Public evidence should show enough for review but not expose unnecessary buyer, merchant, wallet, order, or internal metadata.

Access

Role-Based Visibility

Future viewers should distinguish public, merchant, reviewer, operator, and admin visibility instead of exposing one universal evidence view.

Incident

Incident Response

Define what happens if a key leaks, payment provider is ambiguous, database writes fail, rate limits are abused, or a malicious actor probes receipt IDs.

2. Hardening Control Matrix

Risk	Control	Safe Result	Audit Event
Secret exposure	Server-side only secrets + safe response filter	No secret in public artifact	SECURITY_RESPONSE_FILTERED
Replay attempt	Idempotency + existing state preservation	No new unlock	VERIFY_REPLAY_ATTEMPT
Ambiguous payment state	Fail-secure verification boundary	No unlock until confirmed	VERIFY_AMBIGUOUS_FAIL_SECURE
Rate-limit abuse	Merchant/key scoped throttling direction	Request throttled	VERIFY_RATE_LIMITED
Receipt ID probing	Bounded errors + no enumeration hints	No extra detail leak	VERIFY_RECEIPT_NOT_FOUND
Internal server error	Generic safe error	No stack trace	VERIFY_INTERNAL_ERROR_SAFE

3. Public-Safe Error Response Pattern

{
  "ok": false,
  "statusCode": 500,
  "code": "INTERNAL_ERROR_SAFE",
  "message": "Verification could not be completed safely.",
  "safeBehavior": "NO_UNLOCK",
  "auditEvent": {
    "eventType": "VERIFY_INTERNAL_ERROR_SAFE",
    "result": "ERROR_SAFE",
    "createdAt": "mock_timestamp"
  },
  "debug": null,
  "backendSecretExposed": false,
  "stackTraceExposed": false,
  "databaseStringExposed": false,
  "piMainnetSettlementClaim": false
}

4. Future Role-Based Visibility Direction

Viewer Role	Can See	Must Not See
Public	Summary result, event names, bounded status, public boundary	Private buyer data, merchant private metadata, secrets, raw provider payload
Merchant	Own receipts, order mapping, access state, merchant evidence state	Other merchant records, service role keys, internal logs
Reviewer	Evidence summary, audit timeline, selected proof fields	Unnecessary PII, raw secrets, unrelated merchant data
Operator	Operational alerts, rate-limit events, safe error categories	Wallet passphrase, exposed tokens, avoidable raw sensitive data

5. Pre-Production Hardening Gates

Gate 1: Secret Safety

No secret appears in frontend bundle, public page, JSON response, logs, screenshots, or GitHub public docs.

Gate 2: Verification Safety

Invalid, missing, ambiguous, replayed, mismatched, unauthorized, and rate-limited cases do not unlock access.

Gate 3: Audit Completeness

Every verification attempt produces a minimal audit event: event, time, result, boundary.

Gate 4: Privacy Boundary

Public/reviewer/merchant views expose only necessary information for their role.

Gate 5: Abuse Control

Rate-limit, replay, enumeration, and automated probing behaviors are blocked or throttled and logged.

Gate 6: Incident Readiness

There is a written response path for key leak, provider ambiguity, database failure, and malicious probing.

6. What v6.4 Does Not Claim

v6.4 is a security and compliance hardening direction page. It does not claim that all controls are production-implemented today.

It defines the control gates SafeGate should satisfy before stronger working-proof, public API, or production-readiness claims.

7. V6 Progression

v6.4 Security Hardening

Current stage: controls, gates, and compliance boundary.

8. Public Boundary

SafeGate v6.4 is a public hardening direction page. It does not claim a production public API, does not issue real API keys, does not create production merchant accounts, does not expose backend secrets, and does not claim Pi Mainnet settlement proof.

Current evidence remains Pi Testnet controlled post-payment trust flow.