Security Rules

Baseline security rules for Node.js HTTP services handling untrusted input, secrets, and outbound requests.

Recipe

Quick-reference recipe card - copy-paste ready.

import { z } from "zod";
 
const CreateUserSchema = z.object({
  email: z.string().email(),
  name: z.string().min(1).max(120),
});
 
app.post("/users", (req, res) => {
  const body = CreateUserSchema.safeParse(req.body);
  if (!body.success) return res.status(400).json({ error: body.error.flatten() });
  // ...
});

When to reach for this:

• Every route accepting JSON, query params, or headers.
• Services fetching user-supplied URLs.
• Any code touching API keys or database credentials.

Working Example

// src/config/env.ts
import { z } from "zod";
 
const EnvSchema = z.object({
  DATABASE_URL: z.string().url(),
  JWT_SECRET: z.string().min(32),
  PORT: z.coerce.number().default(3000),
});
 
export const env = EnvSchema.parse(process.env);

// src/security/ssrf.ts
import { lookup } from "node:dns/promises";
 
const BLOCKED = [/^127\./, /^10\./, /^192\.168\./, /^169\.254\./, /^0\./];
 
export async function assertSafeUrl(raw: string) {
  const url = new URL(raw);
  if (!["http:", "https:"].includes(url.protocol)) throw new Error("protocol blocked");
  const { address } = await lookup(url.hostname);
  if (BLOCKED.some((re) => re.test(address))) throw new Error("ssrf blocked");
}

// src/routes/preview.ts
app.post("/preview", async (req, res) => {
  const { targetUrl } = z.object({ targetUrl: z.string().url() }).parse(req.body);
  await assertSafeUrl(targetUrl);
  const html = await fetch(targetUrl, { signal: AbortSignal.timeout(3_000) });
  res.send(await html.text());
});

What this demonstrates:

• Env validated at startup - missing JWT_SECRET fails before listen.
• SSRF guard resolves DNS and blocks private IPs.
• Zod validates input shape before outbound fetch.

Deep Dive

How It Works

• Validate at trust boundary (HTTP edge), not deep in repositories.
• Secrets never logged; redact in structured logger serializers.
• Use helmet or framework plugins for security headers.
• Rate limit auth and expensive endpoints at edge or middleware.

Security Rules Table

TypeScript Notes

• z.infer<typeof Schema> types validated data.
• Avoid any on req.body - type comes from parse result only.

Gotchas

• Trusting req.body after partial validation - Extra fields passed to ORM. Fix: .strict() on Zod objects.
• Logging full request bodies - PII in logs. Fix: log field allowlist only.
• JWT in query strings - Leaks via logs and Referer. Fix: Authorization header only.
• Default CORS * with credentials - Browser security violation and data leak. Fix: explicit origin allowlist.
• Prototype pollution via Object.assign(req.body) - Use structuredClone or schema parse output object.

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Alternatives

FAQs

Related

• Node Project Rules Checklist - rules 6-10
• Dependency Rules - supply chain
• API Rules - error exposure boundaries

External Related Links

• Node.js Best Practices (GitHub) - Curated production best practices.
• NodeSource Blog & Resources - Enterprise Node.js performance and security content.
• npm Official Website & Registry - Package search, publishing, and documentation.
• Distributed Systems with Node.js - Enterprise-ready distributed systems.
• Node.js Design Patterns, 4th Edition - Production-grade application patterns.

Stack versions: This page was written for Node.js 24.18.0 (Active LTS), npm 10+, TypeScript 5.6+, Express 5, Fastify 5, and NestJS 11.