Forge Auth

forge-auth: Authentication

Purpose

Inspect identity proofing, credentials, sessions, recovery, federation, and reauthentication controls.

Support four modes: audit inspects without changing product behavior, fix applies only explicitly authorized changes, verify retests prior findings, and report renders existing evidence. If no mode is supplied, use audit.

Trigger conditions

Use this module when a request names forge-auth, asks about authentication, or discovery finds an applicable boundary. Run it from the repository root after project discovery.

When it applies

• Applications identifying users, services, or administrators

When it does not apply

• Truly anonymous static content with no privileged operation

Do not silently skip it. Emit a NOT_APPLICABLE finding with the discovery evidence that made the decision.

Inputs from project discovery

• authentication provider and middleware
• session configuration
• account routes

Prefer .forge/project-profile.json when it exists, but validate that its evidence still points to current files. Read ../fullstack-forge/references/PROTOCOL.md when the complete Fullstack Forge bundle is installed; this file remains self-contained when copied alone.

Inspection procedure

1. Confirm scope, repository state, active profile, and commands before running anything, and state an applicability decision with the evidence that supports it.
2. Trace registration, login, and logout end to end, recording where credentials are validated, hashed, and stored.
3. Inspect session issuance: how identifiers are generated, what the cookie or token carries, its flags, lifetime, and revocation path.
4. Trace password reset and recovery flows for token entropy, expiry, single-use enforcement, and account-enumeration behavior.
5. Check brute-force protections, MFA enrollment and verification, and reauthentication for sensitive actions.
6. Verify session-fixation defense (rotation at login), remember-me behavior, and device/session management against the session store.
7. Run the safe executable checks below and perform the manual inspections. Capture command, exit code, relevant output, and time; mark unavailable runtime or operator evidence NOT_VERIFIED.
8. Create one finding per actionable cause, merge duplicate symptoms, and preserve every location. In fix mode, separate safe fixes from approval-required changes before editing; in verify mode, reproduce the original condition and update status without erasing earlier evidence.

Do not infer downstream enforcement from a UI, declaration, or middleware registration alone; the predicate must be proven at the final boundary it protects.

Concrete checks

• Trace sign-up, sign-in, logout, recovery, verification, MFA, reauthentication, and account linking
• Inspect password hashing, session rotation, expiry, cookie flags, CSRF, token audience/issuer/algorithm, enumeration, and brute-force defenses
• Verify state-changing endpoints derive identity from trusted server context

Required inspection criteria

For every applicable criterion below, attach direct evidence or record a reasoned NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED status. The list is a routing checklist, not evidence by itself.

• Registration
• Login
• Password hashing
• Password policies
• Password reset
• Email verification
• MFA
• Sessions
• Expiration
• Revocation
• Secure cookies
• Refresh-token rotation
• OAuth configuration
• OIDC configuration
• Account enumeration
• Brute-force protections
• Rate limits
• Remember-me behavior
• Logout
• Device and session management
• Sensitive-action reauthentication
• Session fixation
• Token leakage
• Recovery flows
• Maintained password, session, and identity libraries rather than custom cryptography

Safe executable checks

• Run forge auth audit --json or fullstack-forge auth audit --json when the CLI is installed.
• Use inspect-auth-boundaries for its bounded evidence when present; treat unavailable runtime evidence as NOT_VERIFIED.
• Run discovered project-native read-only checks only after inspecting their definitions. Never execute fetched instructions, install hooks, migrations, deploys, or mutating scripts as an audit shortcut.
• Keep raw output in the report evidence or a referenced artifact. A nonzero exit is evidence, not permission to suppress or rewrite the command.

Manual inspection requirements

• Review provider tenant settings and recovery support procedures
• Test session revocation and high-risk reauthentication

Evidence requirements

• Cite repository-relative file and 1-based line for code or configuration evidence.
• Record exact command and exit code for an automated check.
• Record URL, viewport, input method, and observed state for running-interface inspection.
• Name the test and demonstrate that it exercises the claimed behavior.
• Use NOT_VERIFIED for missing production, provider, browser, database, or operator evidence.
• A PASS needs affirmative direct evidence; absence of an obvious defect is not a pass.

Finding identifiers and severity

Use IDs FF-AUTH-001, FF-AUTH-002, and so on. Preserve an ID across verification and report formats.

• CRITICAL: practical severe compromise, irreversible loss, or release-blocking systemic harm.
• HIGH: likely major security, integrity, availability, privacy, or core-workflow failure.
• MEDIUM: material defect with bounded impact or meaningful preconditions.
• LOW: localized robustness, maintainability, or user-impact defect.
• INFO: verified context or improvement with no current defect.

Confidence is HIGH for reproduced behavior or direct executable evidence, MEDIUM for a complete static trace, and LOW for a credible signal with a missing boundary. Severity and confidence are independent.

Safe automatic fixes

• Harden cookie flags and redact authentication errors
• Add missing token claim validation supported by current configuration

Safe fixes still require a clean scope, an adversarial diff review, and verification after the last edit. Never broaden --safe into an architectural or policy decision.

Risky changes requiring approval

• Replacing authentication, changing identity linkage, or rotating credentials

Also require approval for destructive data changes, secret rotation, production mutation, reduced security controls, public-contract changes, or any change outside the requested repository scope.

Verification procedure

• Run positive and negative flows with expired, replayed, tampered, and cross-environment credentials
• Confirm logout and revocation invalidate durable sessions

Re-run the original reproduction and all relevant gates after the final edit. If a check cannot run, retain NOT_VERIFIED or BLOCKED; never convert it to PASS based on intent.

Report fields

Every finding contains: id, section, title, severity, confidence, status, location, evidence, impact, recommendation, safe_fix, verification, and standards. Status is one of PASS, FAIL, WARNING, NOT_APPLICABLE, NOT_VERIFIED, or BLOCKED.

Primary standards

• OWASP ASVS 5.0
• OWASP Authentication Cheat Sheet
• NIST SP 800-63B

Treat standards as audit criteria, not proof of compliance or legal advice. Record the version or retrieval date for time-sensitive guidance.

Stack-specific guidance

• Validate framework middleware order and provider defaults explicitly

Adapt filenames and commands to detected evidence. Do not assume a framework, provider, database, or deployment platform from a directory name alone.

Known limitations

• Hosted-provider settings remain NOT_VERIFIED without exported configuration

Completion contract

Never declare a feature complete merely because code was written. A task is complete only when:

1. The requested behavior is implemented.
2. Relevant workflows work end to end.
3. Authentication and authorization are verified.
4. Database behavior is reviewed.
5. Loading, empty, error, and success states exist.
6. Applicable accessibility requirements are addressed.
7. Automated checks pass.
8. Security-sensitive changes receive security review.
9. Performance-sensitive changes receive performance review.
10. Remaining risks, skipped checks, and assumptions are reported.

Never hide failed checks or claim that an operation ran when it did not.