Designing a Production-Grade API Control Layer

Day 16 · Part 4 — Designing a Production-Grade API Control Layer

In this stage of the project, I focused on something many apps postpone — API control and observability.

What I implemented:

🔐 Authentication

• API key–based auth
• Unified request contract (request.api_key_obj)
• No implicit globals or hidden state

🛂 Permissions

• Plan-aware permissions (Pro / Enterprise only)
• Explicit access boundaries at the view level

🚦 Rate Limiting

• Daily limits per API key
• Plan-driven quotas
• Cache-backed, deterministic, testable

📜 Audit Logging

• Target hashing (privacy by design)
• IP masking
• Immutable audit records
• Zero dependency on views’ internal logic

The key architectural rule:

Views should not “know” how security works — they should only consume it.

This makes the system:

• safer to evolve
• easier to test
• compliant with real security audits

Day 16 · Part 4 is complete.
Next step: usage tracking & billing foundations.