Checklist: Evaluating Micro-App Security When Non-Developers Ship Code

Hook: Your platform will inherit the risk when non-developers ship micro‑apps

Every week in 2026 platform teams are waking up to unplanned incidents caused by micro‑apps that non‑developers built and shipped using AI assistants or low‑code tools. The result: excessive data access, leaked secrets, and production incidents that extend mean time to recovery (MTTR). This checklist gives platform teams a pragmatic, repeatable way to vet micro‑apps for data access, permissions and secrets management before they touch production.

Why this matters in 2026

Since late 2024, the proliferation of AI coding assistants and desktop AI agents (e.g., Anthropic’s Cowork preview in Jan 2026) accelerated non‑developer app creation. By late 2025 many enterprises reported micro‑apps appearing in shadow IT: spreadsheets with scripts, Slack bots, and lightweight web apps tied into corporate APIs. These are efficient for business owners—but they also bypass standard developer review, CI/CD, and security controls.

Platform teams must assume responsibility for runtime safety. That means shifting from gatekeeping to enabling: implement lightweight, automated vetting that surfaces high‑risk micro‑apps while letting low‑risk ones move fast.

How to use this checklist

This checklist is organized by risk domain. For each item you'll get a short rationale, an actionable test or policy, and, where useful, an implementation snippet. Use it for manual reviews and automate as many checks as possible into onboarding flows, CI, or a dedicated micro‑app registry.

Executive checklist (one‑page)

• Have the micro‑app's owner register it in the platform registry.
• Verify OAuth/OIDC app registration and tenant isolation.
• Confirm least‑privilege IAM: no broad roles (e.g., "admin").
• Ensure secrets are not embedded in code; require Vault/managed identity.
• Run automated static and secret scanning before deployment.
• Confirm a documented and automated revocation path for credentials.
• Score the app by sensitivity (data classes, external connectivity) and apply gates.

Detailed checklist and actionable steps

1) Onboard: mandatory registration and owner accountability

Rationale: Non‑developer creators often skip formal registration, making incident response slow.

• Require each micro‑app to register in your platform's micro‑app registry (name, owner, business justification, data classes touched).
• Collect contact and escalation info for the owner and a technical approver—this must be verified before any elevated permissions are issued.
• Enforce a short, human‑readable description that answers: what does it do, who uses it, which systems it talks to.

2) Threat model: two‑minute triage + documented data map

Rationale: A short threat model reveals obvious risks: PII exfiltration, broad API keys, or lateral movement potential.

1. Classify the app by sensitivity tiers: public, internal, restricted, regulated.
2. Map data flows: source systems, intermediate stores (S3, Google Drive), and sinks (external APIs, email). Consider aligning this with a zero‑trust storage approach for regulated or sensitive data.
3. Assess attacker goals: data theft, privilege escalation, lateral access to production systems.

Deliverable: one page that lists assets, trust boundaries, and a preliminary risk rating. This enables automated policy selection downstream.

3) Permissions audit: require least privilege and ephemeral creds

Rationale: Many micro‑apps request overly broad scopes because creators copy examples or use default templates.

• Never grant long‑lived, broad roles (e.g., AWS "AdministratorAccess", Kubernetes "cluster-admin").
• Enforce role templates: pre‑defined, minimal IAM roles scoped by action and resource.
• Prefer ephemeral credentials (AWS STS AssumeRole, GCP short‑lived tokens, Azure Managed Identity) and require a rotation/revocation plan. For architectures that tie regulated data to compute, see hybrid oracle strategies for regulated data markets.

Actionable IAM example (AWS least privilege snippet):

{
  "Version": "2012-10-17",
  "Statement": [
    {
      "Effect": "Allow",
      "Action": ["s3:GetObject"],
      "Resource": ["arn:aws:s3:::my-app-bucket/path/*"]
    }
  ]
}

4) Secrets management: ban hardcoded secrets

Rationale: Hardcoded tokens and API keys are the most common cause of breaches in micro‑apps.

• Block commits that contain secrets using pre‑receive hooks or GitHub/GitLab secret scanning.
• Require usage of a secret store: HashiCorp Vault, cloud secret manager, or platform secret manager with audit logging. For secure key custody options in community contexts, hardware wallets like TitanVault illustrate physical custody and threat models.
• Prefer injection via runtime mounts or platform sidecar patterns—never interpolate secrets into build artifacts.

Vault usage example (Kubernetes sidecar injector):

# Use Kubernetes service account + Vault Agent Injector
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
  name: microapp
spec:
  template:
    metadata:
      annotations:
        vault.hashicorp.com/agent-inject: "true"
        vault.hashicorp.com/role: "microapp-role"

5) CI/CD and artifact gating: scan code and dependencies

Rationale: Non‑dev creators rely on templates and components—dependency vulnerabilities and supply chain risks are real.

• Run static application security testing (SAST) for known insecure patterns and secret leaks.
• Generate an SBOM for container images and frontend bundles. Use SPDX/CycloneDX and check against vulnerability databases.
• Block builds with critical or high vulnerabilities unless approved via a documented exception process. Consider hardening developer tooling locally as well — see guidance on hardening local JavaScript tooling for teams.

6) Runtime enforcement: least privilege network and egress controls

Rationale: Code can behave differently in production. Constrain network flows and enforce outbound policies.

• Apply egress filtering: deny by default, allow specific external endpoints.
• Use service meshes or platform network policies to enforce host and namespace level rules.
• Monitor for suspicious DNS or outbound patterns (e.g., data exfil via unusual endpoints).

Kubernetes NetworkPolicy example to allow access only to internal API:

apiVersion: networking.k8s.io/v1
kind: NetworkPolicy
metadata:
  name: allow-internal-api
spec:
  podSelector:
    matchLabels:
      app: microapp
  policyTypes:
  - Egress
  egress:
  - to:
    - podSelector:
        matchLabels:
          app: internal-api
    ports:
    - protocol: TCP
      port: 443

7) Observability & runtime detection

Rationale: Fast detection reduces MTTR. Non‑dev apps often lack metrics or structured logs.

• Require standardized telemetry: request IDs, structured logs, and metrics export to platform observability tools. For platform-wide approaches to observability and cost control, review Observability & Cost Control for Content Platforms.
• Deploy runtime protections: WAF for web micro‑apps, eBPF/host sensors for suspicious syscalls, and anomaly detection for API usage.
• Create alerts for high‑risk events: access to sensitive endpoints, large data downloads, or new external connections.

8) Data residency and privacy controls

Rationale: Non‑dev creators may unknowingly send regulated data to public cloud regions or external SaaS.

• Enforce data classification tags and default storage locations according to compliance policies. A zero‑trust storage playbook is useful when designing storage controls for regulated workloads: The Zero‑Trust Storage Playbook.
• Block integrations that send regulated data to third‑party services unless approved and covered by DPA.

9) Governance: automated gates, manual approvals, and risk scoring

Rationale: Not all micro‑apps are equally risky. Use risk scoring to apply proportional controls.

• Automate a risk score based on data class, external connectivity, permissions requested, and SBOM severity.
• Define gates: low risk auto‑approve; medium risk requires security review; high risk blocked until remediation.
• Track approvals in an auditable workflow that ties back to the registered owner.

10) Incident playbook and kill switch

Rationale: When a micro‑app behaves badly, you need a rapid, frictionless way to isolate and revoke access.

• Maintain an automated revocation API: remove app credentials, revoke roles, and disable ingress in one API call.
• Create playbooks for common scenarios (leaked secret, data exfiltration, privilege escalation) and map actions to the revocation API.
• Test the kill switch quarterly with tabletop exercises involving app owners.

"A kill switch that isn't tested is just hope." — Platform security best practice

Automation patterns for scale

Platform teams can’t manually vet every micro‑app. Automate these checks:

• CI hooks for secret scanning and SBOM generation.
• Automated role templating and ephemeral token issuance via self‑service portal.
• Risk scoring pipeline that combines static results, SBOM, and owner‑provided data to assign gates.
• Runtime policy enforcement using service mesh, egress firewalls and OPA/Gatekeeper policies. A quick one‑page stack audit helps keep your platform lean and focused: Strip the Fat: One-Page Stack Audit.

Tooling examples in 2026: integrate SAST/SCA vendors with a platform API, use OPA/Gatekeeper for Kubernetes admission control, and leverage cloud provider short‑lived credentials. Many teams now use GitOps patterns to make policy changes auditable and reversible.

Real‑world example: blocking a risky micro‑app (case study)

In Q4 2025 a finance team created a low‑code expense micro‑app that requested a broad cloud storage role. The platform registry flagged the app during onboarding: risk score high (PII + broad IAM). The automated gate created a task for the platform approver. During review, the platform team discovered the app attempted direct S3 writes to a globally accessible bucket.

• Action taken: role narrowed to an explicit prefix path, bucket set to block public access, and secrets moved to Vault.
• Result: the owner kept their app, business workflow preserved, incident and cost risk removed. MTTR for potential incidents dropped to 30 minutes from a likely 4+ hours had the app been deployed unchecked.

Practical templates and snippets

Micro‑app registration fields (minimal)

• App name, owner, team
• Business justification
• Data classes accessed (PII, PHI, financial)
• Requested permissions (cloud roles, APIs)
• External integrations (domains, SaaS)

Risk scoring heuristic (example)

• Data class: public (0), internal (1), restricted (3), regulated (5)
• Permissions breadth: narrow (0), moderate (2), broad (5)
• External connectivity: none (0), listed SaaS (1), unknown/external endpoints (3)
• Vulnerabilities in SBOM: none (0), medium (2), high/critical (5)

Score >= 8 = manual security review; >=12 = blocked until remediated.

Integration playbook: how to add this to your platform in 4 weeks

1. Week 1: Create a minimal registry and registration form. Start requiring registration for any non‑developer app. (See practical onboarding improvements in marketplace onboarding playbooks.)
2. Week 2: Add automated secret scanning and SBOM generation to your build pipeline; block hardcoded secrets.
3. Week 3: Implement role templates and ephemeral credential issuance; enforce via CI and platform portal.
4. Week 4: Implement runtime network policies, observability telemetry requirements, and the kill switch API. Start tabletop exercises.

Future predictions — what platform teams should prepare for

In 2026 expect these trends to shape micro‑app risk:

• AI agents with file system and desktop access will increase the number of autonomous micro‑apps—platforms must treat agent‑created artifacts as code with identical controls.
• Unified trust fabrics will emerge: short‑lived tokens plus attestation (e.g., workload identity via confidential compute) will become default for sensitive apps.
• Governance will shift left: policy as code will be enforced earlier (IDE/plugin level) so non‑developers receive realtime feedback before they hit the platform registry.

Quick checklist summary (printable)

• Register app and owner
• Complete 2‑minute threat model
• Enforce least‑privilege, ephemeral creds
• Block hardcoded secrets; require Vault or managed secret injection
• Generate SBOM and run SAST/SCA
• Apply egress and network restrictions
• Require telemetry and run anomaly alerts
• Score risk and gate accordingly
• Maintain and test kill switch and incident playbook

Actionable takeaways

• Assume risk: treat every non‑dev micro‑app as potentially high risk until proven otherwise.
• Automate controls: CI gates, role templating, and secret scanning are immediate ROI items.
• Enable, don’t block: give owners self‑service patterns (ephemeral creds, templates) so they can move fast without bypassing security.
• Test the kill switch: rehearse revocation and incident responses quarterly.

Final note: balance speed with safety

Non‑developer micro‑apps drive real business value—platform teams should enable them while preventing common failure modes. By institutionalizing a pragmatic, automated checklist focused on data access, permissions, and secrets management, you reduce MTTR, preserve developer velocity, and protect sensitive data.

Call to action

Start today: add the one‑page executive checklist to your platform onboarding, enable one CI gate (secret scanning or SBOM), and schedule a kill‑switch tabletop for the next sprint. If you want a ready‑made template or integration guide for Vault, cloud IAM, or Kubernetes policies, request our free micro‑app security starter pack tailored to your cloud environment.

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