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Security

Deployment protection

Restrict access to previews, unique deployment URLs, and non-current deployments.

Access protection controls who can open a deployment before application code runs. Easel currently provides this through Deployment Protection policies.

Deployment protection controls who can access a deployment after the request passes traffic-level security checks.

It is designed for:

  • Preview deployments
  • Branch deployments
  • Pull request previews
  • Unique deployment URLs
  • Staged Production deployments that are not Current

Protection method

Easel provides workspace authentication (SSO through the Easel app host).

When deployment protection is enabled, visitors must sign in with a workspace account before they can view protected deployment URLs. After a successful sign-in, the edge sets a session cookie (easel_dp, about one hour).

Where to configure

  1. Open the project.
  2. Open Project settings.
  3. Find Deployment protection.
  4. Enable Require workspace sign-in.
  5. Save.

Allow a short CDN cache delay after toggling.

Security layers

Deployment protection is separate from the firewall.

A request may:

  1. Pass platform protections.
  2. Pass custom firewall rules and Attack Mode.
  3. Still be denied because the requester is not authorized to view the deployment.

Custom firewall actions do not bypass deployment authentication.

What is protected

When enabled, visitors need workspace sign-in for:

  • Preview hostnames on preview.easelusercontent.com (commit and branch URLs)
  • Any deployment that is not the current production release

The following stay public:

  • The canonical production subdomain for the current production deployment
  • LIVE custom domains on the current production deployment

Preview deployments

By default, preview hostnames are publicly reachable unless deployment protection is enabled.

Preview responses also send X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow, noarchive so crawlers skip indexing. noindex is not an access control.

See Preview deployments.

Forks and untrusted code

Treat Preview configuration as untrusted-input space:

  • Keep Production secrets out of Preview variables
  • Enable deployment protection when previews must not be public

See Secrets and Deployment environments.