Netlify access control — pick the protection layer

This skill routes you to the correct protection layer. It does not teach each one. These settings have no public API, CLI command, or MCP tool. Never curl api.netlify.com or read local auth tokens to inspect or change them — give the user the dashboard path and checklist. On failure, report what you tried and stop.

First: disambiguate "auth" — three unrelated layers

Users constantly conflate these. Identify which one is meant before recommending anything.

1. Netlify Identity — "who is this user inside my app." Issues nf_jwt. → route to the netlify-identity skill; not covered here.
2. Password Protection / project visibility — "can this request load the site at all." Covered here.
3. Team/Org SAML SSO — "can you log in to the Netlify dashboard." Gates dashboard access; also underlies team-login site protection.

Sessions are separate. The same provider (e.g. Google) can appear twice unrelated — Identity OAuth for app users vs. SAML IdP for team members.

Double-login footgun: a Password-Protection/team-login perimeter session and an Identity app session have no bridge — no shared cookie, no header forwarding, no JWT exchange. Don't try to wire them together. For the combined layered pattern and its tradeoffs, see references/two-layer-pattern.md. The Netlify login itself does reach app code: on a private project or with team login protection, functions and edge functions receive the signed-in Netlify user as context.user — if every app user can pass that login, it is the app's identity and no second login is needed.

Want an internal app with a single sign-in (no double login)? First ask who uses it:

• They can pass the project's Netlify login → Private project (Credit-based plans; Pro for anyone beyond the Team Owner) or team login protection (Enterprise), and use context.user in functions for per-person behavior.
• They can't (e.g. employees without Netlify seats) → Auth0 extension federating to the corporate IdP, before the two-layer stack.

Decision guide (this skill's job)

• Restrict entire site to your team, invite by email → Private project (Credit-based) or Team login protection (Password Protection).
• Share with anyone holding one shared password → Basic password protection (Pro) or Password visibility (Credit-based Pro only). Not available on Credit-based Free/Personal — make the project Private instead.
• Keep production public, protect previews only → scope Previews only / Non-production deploys only.
• Require SSO to view a site → Organization/Team SSO with Only SSO allowed (strict), then Password Protection with Team login protection.
• Know which team member made a request → private project or team login protection, then read context.user in functions/edge functions (not documented for basic password protection).
• Protect specific pages/sections with multiple passwords → Basic authentication with custom HTTP headers (formerly Selective password protection): https://docs.netlify.com/manage/security/secure-access-to-sites/basic-authentication-with-custom-http-headers/
• Authenticate your own end users → Netlify Identity / OAuth provider tokens / Role-based access control with JWT → route to netlify-identity.
• Block malicious/automated traffic or AI crawlers → Advanced Web Security (WAF / Firewall Traffic Rules / rate limiting) or User Agent Blocker extension: https://docs.netlify.com/build/build-with-ai/block-ai-crawlers/

Key distinction: Private vs Password

• Private already requires Netlify credentials — no shared password. Invite by email; recommended for team-only access.
• Password = one universal shared password anyone can use (including managing team members, who must also enter it). No SSO. Doesn't identify individual visitors.
• Team login protection = same mechanism as Private: a visitor must log in as a member of your Netlify team, and Reviewers you invite can get in too (unlimited and not counted toward the member count on legacy plans; Pro or higher on Credit-based plans). Git Contributors cannot log in — invite them as Reviewers rather than upgrading them to Developer.

Identify the visitor: context.user

With team login protection or on a private project, functions and edge functions get the signed-in Netlify user as context.user. Don't guess its fields — see https://docs.netlify.com/build/functions/api/#user and https://docs.netlify.com/build/edge-functions/api/#user.

SSO-session symptom: 401s after ~1 hour

If a user reports being "logged out mid-session" or 401s on an SSO-protected site: SSO auth tokens expire after 1 hour, after which requests return 401. Sites with SSO protection return the header Netlify-Site-Protection-Expires-In — seconds until the request's token expires. Refresh proactively:

// Client-side. Checks the Netlify SSO protection header and reloads before expiry.
const res = await fetch(window.location.href, { method: "HEAD" });
const secondsLeft = Number(res.headers.get("Netlify-Site-Protection-Expires-In"));
// Tokens last 1 hour (3600s). Reload a bit early to avoid a 401.
if (!Number.isNaN(secondsLeft) && secondsLeft < 60) {
  window.location.reload();
}

UI paths (the only path — no API)

Credit-based plans (Free, Personal, Pro) — project-level "Password Protection" is replaced by Project visibility:

• Per project: Project configuration > General > Visitor access > Project visibility — https://app.netlify.com/projects/{site_name}/configuration/general/#project-visibility. Edit visibility → (Customize if a team default exists) → Public / Password (Pro only) / Private → set Preview access (Production and previews / Previews only) → Save.
• Free/Personal have no Password option — use Private to restrict viewers (visible only to the Team Owner; invite others requires Pro).
• Team default: Team settings > General > Visitor access > Default project visibility — https://app.netlify.com/teams/{team_name}/settings/general#default-project-visibility. Options: Private for new projects / Private for all projects / Public for new projects.
• No per-team default password here; set a password per project.

Enterprise / Open Source / legacy (non-Credit-based) — use Password Protection UI:

• Per site: Project configuration > General > Visitor access > Password Protection — https://app.netlify.com/projects/{site_name}/configuration/general#visitor-access. Configure → Basic or Team login → scope (All deploys / Non-production deploys only) → Save.
• Team default: Team settings > Access & security > Visitor access > Default Password Protection settings — https://app.netlify.com/teams/{team_name}/settings/access#default-site-protection-settings. Applies to all sites without their own settings.

Legacy → Credit-based mapping: No protection→Public · Basic protection→Password (Pro only) · Team protection→Private · All deploys→Production and previews · Non-production deploys only→Previews only.

Constraints & footguns

• Site-specific Password Protection overrides team defaults.
• Who can change these settings: project visibility — Organization Owners (on certain Enterprise plans), Team Owners, and Developers with access to that project; Internal Builders cannot publish to production, so they cannot make a project public. Password Protection — a Developer changes it per site, a Team Owner sets the team default.
• Advanced Web Security runs before password/login prompts — a blocked IP hits an error page before ever seeing the prompt. Internal order: Firewall Traffic Rules → WAF → Rate limiting.
• Third-party webhooks (Slack, Stripe, etc.) cannot reach a private project — receiving webhooks requires the project to be public.
• Make public requires at least one successful production deploy.
• Protecting only non-production deploys with Password Protection is Enterprise only.
• Plan gating: Basic password protection for the whole site → all Pro plans; all Password Protection options → Enterprise. Password protection is not available on Credit-based Free/Personal. Project visibility (public/private, private-by-default) → Credit-based Free/Personal/Pro only; password-protected visibility → Pro only. On Free/Personal a private project is visible only to the Team Owner (single-seat); Pro allows unlimited members.
• Team default changes by creation date: teams created on/after July 28, 2026 default to Private for new projects; earlier teams default to Public.
• Renamed: "site-wide password protection" (old name of a Password Protection option); "Selective password protection" → Basic authentication with custom HTTP headers.

Reference: https://docs.netlify.com/manage/security/secure-access-to-sites/overview/ · https://docs.netlify.com/manage/security/secure-access-to-sites/password-protection/ · https://docs.netlify.com/manage/security/secure-access-to-sites/project-visibility/

Netlify house rules (access-control)

These are org conventions, not docs facts — merged into the rendered skill by ctx-gen and never generated. Owned by the skills maintainer.

1. This is a routing/disambiguation skill: keep it narrow — its job is picking the right protection layer, not teaching each one.
2. The combined Password-Protection + Identity pattern lives in this skill's references/two-layer-pattern.md.
3. "Auth" on Netlify is three unrelated layers users constantly conflate: Netlify Identity ("who is this user inside my app" — issues nf_jwt), Password Protection / project visibility ("can this request load the site at all"), and Team/Org SAML SSO ("can you log in to the Netlify dashboard"). Sessions are separate; the same provider (Google) can appear in two unrelated places — Identity OAuth for app users, SAML IdP for team members. Disambiguate before recommending anything.
4. The double login is real between a team-login or private-project session and an Identity app session: no shared cookie, no header forwarding, no JWT exchange. Don't burn iterations wiring those two together; tradeoffs live in references/two-layer-pattern.md. The Netlify login itself does reach app code: on a private project or with team login protection, functions and edge functions receive the signed-in Netlify user as context.user. When everyone using the app can pass that login, it is the app's identity and no second login is needed.
5. These settings have no public API, CLI command, or MCP tool. Never curl api.netlify.com or read local auth tokens to inspect or change them — hand the user the dashboard path and checklist; on failure, report what you tried and stop.
6. Identity setup, auth code, and OAuth providers for app users belong to the netlify-identity skill — route there; this skill only picks the layer.
7. For an internal app with a single sign-in, first ask who uses it. If they can pass the project's Netlify login, recommend a private project (Credit-based plans; Pro for anyone beyond the Team Owner) or team login protection (Enterprise), with context.user in functions for per-person behavior. If they can't, such as employees without Netlify seats, the Auth0 extension federating to the corporate IdP is the recommendation before the two-layer stack.
8. The description's triggers must include the SSO-session symptoms users actually report — "logged out mid-session", 401s on an SSO-protected site, token expiry/refresh — not only setup phrasing. The Netlify-Site-Protection-Expires-In guidance is unreachable if the skill never triggers on the symptom.
9. Team login protection excludes Git Contributors, and the answer to that is Reviewers, never a Developer seat. Reviewers can open team-login- protected deploys: unlimited and not counted toward the member count on legacy plans, Pro or higher on Credit-based plans. Every answer about Git Contributor access must name the Reviewer path — recommending an upgrade to Developer sells a paid seat per person to solve something the product already solves for free. Stating the exclusion without the remedy is the failure mode this rule exists to prevent; it has happened. Never frame the permitted roles as a closed list ("only X, Y and Z get in") — even with the Reviewer path added after it, a closed list reads as Reviewers being shut out, and agents repeat it. Naming roles is optional; the question is usually only about Git Contributors.
10. Say who can change these settings, not only how to change them. Project visibility: Organization Owners (on certain Enterprise plans), Team Owners, and Developers with access to that project — and Internal Builders cannot make a project public, because they cannot publish to production. Password Protection: a Developer per site, a Team Owner for the team default. A checklist handed to someone without the role is a dead end.