security

A Rails security guide covering authentication, permissions, safe database queries, input handling, and protection against cross-site scripting.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding login or authorization, accepting request parameters, writing database queries, handling passwords and sessions, or escaping user-provided content.
Why use it?
It gives developers concrete rules for reducing common risks, such as unauthorized access, SQL injection, and unsafe browser output.

Cursor rule for Cursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add rules/levifig/rails-instructions/security
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/levifig/rails-instructions

Made for: Cursor.

Per session 0 Nothing until a file matches its globs; then the whole rule loads.
When invoked 1,093 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00000 $0.01093
Opus 5 $0.00000 $0.00547
Sonnet 5 $0.00000 $0.00219
Haiku 4.5 $0.00000 $0.00109

Measured 2d ago against content hash 605ab0319f7c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

security scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 2d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

.cursor/rules/rails/security.mdc · 211 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 211 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Rails Security Guide

Core Philosophy

  • Security is not optional, it's fundamental
  • Follow the principle of least privilege
  • Never trust user input
  • Defense in depth - multiple layers of security
  • Stay updated with security best practices

Authentication Principles

  • Use Rails built-in authentication generator
  • Implement secure password requirements
  • Use has_secure_password for password handling
  • Implement session timeouts
  • Support multi-factor authentication when needed

Authorization Strategy

  • Authenticate every request
  • Authorize every action
  • Fail closed - deny by default
  • Check permissions at multiple levels
  • Log authorization failures

Strong Parameters

  • Always use strong parameters
  • Whitelist allowed attributes explicitly
  • Never permit entire parameter hashes
  • Handle nested attributes carefully
  • Document permitted parameters

SQL Injection Prevention

  • Use parameterized queries always
  • Avoid string interpolation in queries
  • Use Active Record query interface
  • Sanitize user input when necessary
  • Review raw SQL carefully

Cross-Site Scripting (XSS)

  • Escape output by default
  • Use Rails sanitize helpers appropriately
  • Be careful with raw and html_safe
  • Implement Content Security Policy
  • Validate and sanitize user input

Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF)

  • Enable CSRF protection globally
  • Include tokens in all forms
  • Verify tokens on state-changing requests
  • Handle AJAX requests properly
  • Document any CSRF exceptions

Session Security

  • Use secure session storage
  • Implement session expiration
  • Regenerate session IDs after login
  • Clear sessions on logout
  • Monitor for session hijacking

Password Management

  • Enforce strong password policies
  • Never store passwords in plain text
  • Use bcrypt for password hashing
  • Implement password reset securely
  • Support password managers

API Security

  • Use token-based authentication
  • Implement rate limiting
  • Version APIs from the start
  • Use HTTPS exclusively
  • Validate API input thoroughly

Read the full file on GitHub · 211 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 2d ago First seen · 211 lines · 1,093 tokens per session scan A 605ab0319f7c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

security is a cursor rule published in the GitHub repository levifig/rails-instructions (54 stars, last pushed 1y ago), licensed MIT. It costs nothing until one of its globs matches a file; then it loads 1,093 tokens. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.