Security and Key Rotation

Credential boundaries

Provider keys, server credentials, webhook secrets, and purchase details should stay out of prompts, screenshots, presentations, support messages, and public documentation. SophMate settings should be limited to trusted administrators who understand provider billing, privacy impact, and production support ownership.

Rotation workflow

Rotate provider credentials after staff changes, suspected exposure, provider account changes, agency handoffs, or security incidents. Test the new key in SophMate settings, keep old and new ownership documented, and review budget and usage controls after the change so unexpected spend does not hide in normal usage.

Incident handling

If a key may have been exposed, revoke it at the provider, pause write-capable workflows, refresh diagnostics, and open an internal incident record before changing multiple settings. Use privacy and data retention and incident response when support evidence may contain sensitive context.

Quick reference

• Use this page when changing provider, budget, role, mail, queue, cron, source, cache, or WooCommerce context settings.
• Do not store secrets, credentials, purchase codes, or private customer data in documentation notes or screenshots.
• Key decision: whether provider access, data handling, fallback behavior, and credential ownership are safe for the workflows being enabled.

Scope limits

• Do not use this page to approve a provider for sensitive data without reviewing provider policy, billing owner, fallback behavior, and key rotation responsibilities.
• This page does not replace provider, host, mail, billing, security, or legal policy review where those owners are responsible.
• Use it to frame configuration decisions, not to store secrets or justify broad access.

Owner and cadence

• Primary owner: site administrator with provider, billing, and security responsibility.
• Review cadence: after provider, mailbox, role, budget, security, WooCommerce, or integration changes.
• Escalate when a credential may be exposed, a provider owner changed, or usage appears after a key should have been revoked.

Access and data boundary

• Provider evidence should include account owner, model access, billing state, rate limits, fallback owner, and policy decision without exposing API keys.
• Restrict provider keys, billing, budgets, roles, mail routing, queues, cron, cache, and integration settings to accountable administrators.
• Document setting intent and validation results without storing API keys, mailbox passwords, purchase codes, raw logs, or private customer records.

Production checklist

• Rotate provider keys after staff changes, suspected exposure, agency handoffs, provider account changes, or security incidents.
• Re-test provider connection and review usage immediately after rotation.
• Document who owns provider credentials, budget limits, role access, notification routing, and ongoing review.
• Keep configuration changes behind administrator access and review them after plugin updates, staff changes, or incidents.

Acceptance checks

• The old key is revoked at the provider and no longer works for SophMate requests.
• The new key owner, billing owner, rotation date, and next review date are documented.
• A second administrator can explain why each high-risk setting is enabled and who may change it.
• No production credential, support mailbox, or notification path depends on an unmanaged personal account.

Failure modes to test

• Test invalid keys, revoked keys, missing billing, model denial, rate limits, fallback provider failure, and provider-policy mismatch.
• Test invalid credentials, exhausted budget, unmonitored mailbox, wrong role mapping, queue delay, cron failure, and cache-dependent behavior.
• Confirm configuration failures are visible to an owner without exposing provider keys, mailbox credentials, or raw logs.

Evidence to capture

• Capture old-key revocation timestamp, new-key owner, provider test result, affected workflows, and confirmation that no secrets appear in support evidence.
• Record changed setting, previous value category, new value category, owner, approval reason, and review date without storing secrets.
• Capture provider, budget, role, mailbox, queue, cron, cache, and WooCommerce evidence relevant to the setting being changed.

Decision record

• Decision field to include: provider account owner, allowed model, billing or quota state, fallback owner, key rotation status, and data-handling approval.
• Record the configuration decision, setting owner, previous setting category, new setting category, validation result, approval reason, and next review date.
• Include whether the change affects provider spend, privacy, mail delivery, queue or cron behavior, WooCommerce context, or user permissions.

Stop or rollback path

Pause provider-dependent workflows when credentials, billing, rate limits, model access, data handling, or fallback behavior are unclear. Resume after diagnostics pass and affected workflows have an owner-approved restart note.

Monitoring window

• Monitor the next operating cycle for unexpected spend, blocked work, missed notifications, queue delays, or changed provider behavior.
• Compare the setting change against audit records, diagnostics, and user reports before making another related change.

Expansion criteria

• Widen the setting change only after audit records, user reports, diagnostics, and cost or delivery signals match expectations.
• The owner can explain how to reverse or narrow the change without searching through unrelated settings.

Common mistakes

• Pasting keys into prompts, support tickets, screenshots, or client presentations while trying to prove the issue.
• Using personal provider keys, personal mailboxes, or broad administrator access because it is faster during setup.
• Changing budgets, roles, notifications, or integrations without recording the owner and review reason.

Common questions

Who should approve provider or credential changes?

A site administrator or provider owner should approve the change after model access, billing, data handling, fallback behavior, and affected workflows are understood.

Who should own this decision?

The site administrator should own the decision, with provider, billing, security, mail, or hosting owners involved when their systems are affected.

What should stop the rollout?

Stop when a setting changes spend, access, privacy, mail, queue, cron, cache, provider behavior, or WooCommerce behavior without validation evidence.

Related operations

• Pair rotation with Connect an AI Provider.
• Pair configuration work with Roles and Permissions.
• Review Approval Controls before enabling write-capable modules.
• Use Cost Allocation and Client Billing Review before client or team billing reviews.
• Use Cache Queue and Performance before scaling workflows or alerts.
• Use Scheduled Task and Cron Reliability before relying on recurring work.
• Use Provider Models and Fallbacks before changing production model behavior.
• Use Data Residency and Provider Policy Review before sending sensitive context.