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SecurityMarch 30, 20268 min read

Security headers without breaking prod: HSTS, CSP, and phased rollouts

How to move from report-only CSP to enforcement and still sleep at night.

Security headers without breaking prod: HSTS, CSP, and phased rollouts

HSTS and CSP remain some of the highest-leverage defenses for session and injection classes of issues, but a single mis-step can brick assets or break third-party widgets.

Roll CSP in layers: start with Report-Only, collect violations grouped by URL and directive, fix inline scripts by moving to nonces or hashes where feasible, and only then enforce. HSTS should follow a measured max-age climb once HTTPS coverage is proven end-to-end, including subdomains you forgot existed.

Document third parties explicitly. Marketing stacks love tag managers; CSP loves deny-by-default. Negotiate allowlists with vendors and prefer single-purpose domains over broad wildcards.

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