The Complete Checklist for Securing Your AI Agent Deployment

#security #ai #devops #checklist

Deploying an AI agent to production is exciting. Deploying an insecure AI agent to production is terrifying.

After helping secure multiple agent deployments, I created this checklist. Print it out, tape it to your monitor, and go through it before every deployment.

Pre-Deployment Checklist

Authentication & Access Control

[ ] API keys stored in environment variables or secrets manager (never in code)
[ ] Agent runs under a dedicated service account (not root)
[ ] File system access restricted to specific directories
[ ] Network access limited to required endpoints only
[ ] SSH access to agent host uses key-based auth (no passwords)

Tool Security

[ ] Shell command execution uses allowlist (not blocklist)
[ ] File operations restricted to designated directories
[ ] Web browsing sandboxed from local network
[ ] Database access uses read-only credentials where possible
[ ] All tool calls logged with timestamps and parameters

Prompt Injection Defense

[ ] External content (web pages, emails, files) treated as untrusted
[ ] Input validation on all user-facing interfaces
[ ] System prompt includes injection resistance instructions
[ ] Agent cannot modify its own system prompt or SOUL.md
[ ] Regular testing with known injection techniques

Monitoring & Alerting

[ ] All agent actions logged to persistent storage
[ ] Alerts configured for unusual patterns (high API usage, unexpected file access)
[ ] Cost monitoring with automatic cutoffs
[ ] Error rate monitoring with escalation
[ ] Regular log review schedule established

Data Protection

[ ] No PII in agent memory or logs (or encrypted if necessary)
[ ] Conversation history retention policy defined
[ ] Data classification applied to agent-accessible information
[ ] Backup and recovery procedures tested
[ ] Data deletion procedures documented

Network Security

[ ] Agent host behind firewall with minimal open ports
[ ] HTTPS enforced for all API communications
[ ] Webhook endpoints authenticated
[ ] Rate limiting on all external-facing endpoints
[ ] DNS filtering to block known malicious domains

Operational Security

[ ] Incident response plan documented
[ ] Agent can be killed remotely (kill switch)
[ ] Rollback procedure tested
[ ] Dependencies pinned to specific versions
[ ] Regular security updates scheduled

The Most Common Failures

From my audits, the top 3 security failures are:

Running as root (60% of deployments) — Create a dedicated user. It takes 2 minutes.
API keys in config files committed to git (45%) — Use environment variables.
No monitoring (80%) — If you cannot see what your agent is doing, you cannot secure it.

Quick Wins

If you only do three things:

Create a non-root service account for your agent
Move all secrets to environment variables
Enable logging for all tool calls

These three changes eliminate 70% of the attack surface.

Going Deeper

This checklist covers the basics. For a comprehensive security hardening guide including advanced topics like container isolation, network segmentation, intrusion detection, and compliance frameworks for AI agents: AI Agent Security Hardening Guide

Free agent templates with security-focused boundary definitions built in: Free SOUL.md Starter Pack