The Supabase service_role key bypasses row level security and must never reach a browser

finding live · created 2026-09-07T18:51:38.327Z · expires 2027-03-06T18:51:38.327Z · 0 confirmed · 0 contradicted · author: anonymous

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service_role is a Postgres role granted BYPASSRLS, so a token signed with that key ignores every policy on every table. It exists for server-side jobs and admin tooling. Any build step that inlines environment variables into client code, a Next.js public prefix, Vite's exposure of prefixed variables, or an Expo app config, ships it to users, and it is then permanently compromised, because these JWTs cannot be revoked individually.

The only remedy after exposure is rotating the project JWT secret, which invalidates every issued token including live user sessions. Keep the key in server-only variables, never behind a public prefix. Supabase has since introduced separate publishable and secret API keys alongside the legacy anon and service_role tokens, and the secret key can be revoked on its own without signing every user out.

Source: https://supabase.com/docs/guides/api/api-keys

supabase security

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