Palantir security basics

Palantir Security Basics

Overview

Security best practices for Foundry API tokens, OAuth2 credentials, scope management, and secret rotation. Covers both personal access tokens (dev) and service user credentials (production).

Prerequisites

• Foundry Developer Console access
• Understanding of OAuth2 scopes

Instructions

Step 1: Secure Credential Storage

# .env — NEVER commit to git
FOUNDRY_HOSTNAME=mycompany.palantirfoundry.com
FOUNDRY_CLIENT_ID=your-client-id
FOUNDRY_CLIENT_SECRET=your-client-secret

# .gitignore — ensure .env files are excluded
echo '.env' >> .gitignore
echo '.env.local' >> .gitignore
echo '.env.*.local' >> .gitignore

For production, use a secrets manager:

# AWS Secrets Manager
aws secretsmanager create-secret --name foundry/prod \
  --secret-string '{"client_id":"xxx","client_secret":"yyy","hostname":"zzz"}'

# Google Cloud Secret Manager
echo -n "your-client-secret" | gcloud secrets create foundry-client-secret --data-file=-

# HashiCorp Vault
vault kv put secret/foundry client_id=xxx client_secret=yyy

Step 2: Apply Least Privilege Scopes

Environment	Recommended Scopes	Rationale
Development	api:read-data	Read-only prevents accidental mutations
Staging	api:read-data, api:write-data	Test writes in safe environment
Production	Only scopes your app actually needs	Minimize blast radius

# Production app that only reads Ontology objects:
auth = foundry.ConfidentialClientAuth(
    client_id=os.environ["FOUNDRY_CLIENT_ID"],
    client_secret=os.environ["FOUNDRY_CLIENT_SECRET"],
    hostname=os.environ["FOUNDRY_HOSTNAME"],
    scopes=["api:ontology-read"],  # Minimum viable scope
)

Step 3: Rotate Credentials

# 1. Generate new credentials in Developer Console
# 2. Deploy new credentials alongside old ones
# 3. Verify new credentials work
python -c "
import os, foundry
auth = foundry.ConfidentialClientAuth(
    client_id=os.environ['NEW_CLIENT_ID'],
    client_secret=os.environ['NEW_CLIENT_SECRET'],
    hostname=os.environ['FOUNDRY_HOSTNAME'],
    scopes=['api:read-data'],
)
auth.sign_in_as_service_user()
print('New credentials verified')
"
# 4. Remove old credentials from Developer Console
# 5. Update environment variables to use new credentials only

Step 4: Validate Tokens Are Not Exposed

# Scan for leaked credentials in git history
git log --all -p | grep -i "foundry_token\|foundry_client_secret" | head -5
# If found: rotate immediately, then use git-filter-repo to remove

# Pre-commit hook to prevent committing secrets
# .pre-commit-config.yaml
# - repo: https://github.com/Yelp/detect-secrets
#   hooks:
#   - id: detect-secrets

Step 5: Security Checklist

• Credentials in environment variables or secrets manager (never in code)
• .env files listed in .gitignore
• Separate credentials per environment (dev/staging/prod)
• Minimum scopes per application
• Personal access tokens used only for development
• OAuth2 client credentials for all production workloads
• Credential rotation schedule (every 90 days)
• Pre-commit hooks to detect leaked secrets

Output

• Securely stored credentials using secrets manager
• Least-privilege scopes per environment
• Rotation procedure documented and tested
• Pre-commit hooks preventing secret commits

Error Handling

Security Issue	Detection	Mitigation
Exposed token in git	detect-secrets scan	Rotate immediately, scrub history
Overly broad scopes	Audit app permissions	Reduce to minimum needed
Stale credentials	Age > 90 days	Rotate on schedule
Shared credentials	Multiple users same token	Create per-user service users

Resources

• Foundry Authentication
• Developer Console
• detect-secrets

Next Steps

For production deployment, see palantir-prod-checklist.