Hidden truth must be inaccessible by construction, not merely hidden in the UI or protected by prompts.

Never expose through client-callable queries/actions:

• caseSolutions,
• raw private caseEvents,
• npcScripts,
• unreleased forensic outputs,
• generation repair/debug payloads containing solution truth.

Do not send these documents to the client and filter fields client-side.

The NPC LLM must never receive the full case solution.

buildNpcContext may include only:

• this NPC's script,
• facts this NPC knows/experienced,
• allowed public world facts,
• this NPC/session conversation history,
• this NPC/session memory.

Never include another NPC's private script.

Use Clerk for player authentication in V1.

Use the Clerk user identity for:

• authorization,
• ownership/membership checks,
• rate limiting,
• abuse correlation.

Display identity is a user-chosen nickname.

• room code is shareable and allows joining while capacity permits,
• reconnect secret identifies a specific player slot,
• store only a cryptographic hash of reconnect secret,
• raw secret returned once,
• use high-entropy value independent of room code,
• never log raw reconnect secrets.

Every session-scoped client call:

1. authenticate Clerk user identity,
2. verify membership/reconnect state,
3. verify requested entity belongs to the session's case,
4. verify visibility/discovery rules,
5. verify session is in an allowed state.

Never trust client-supplied case IDs/entity relationships without checking ownership.

Once case.status = ready, ordinary runtime functions cannot update generated-case truth tables.

Only explicit developer/admin recovery paths, if ever added later, may bypass this rule.

Treat all LLM output as untrusted structured data.

• validate schemas,
• validate entity references,
• validate lengths/enums,
• re-check server-side permissions,
• never execute arbitrary LLM-proposed state mutations,
• NPC text can only become persisted dialogue/memory, not game truth.

Bound:

• nickname length,
• NPC message length/frequency,
• clue-board note length,
• edge labels,
• public-record search query length,
• case-close explanation lengths.

Sanitize rendering; do not render user HTML.

Public sign-up can burn LLM budget.

At minimum rate-limit:

• case creation/generation,
• NPC messages,
• case-close judging,
• reconnect/join attempts.

Use per-Clerk-user and global limits.

Before public launch, add bot protection such as Cloudflare Turnstile to expensive public entry points, especially case creation.

Provider/API keys remain server-side in Convex environment configuration.

No model/provider secret may enter Next.js client bundles.

llmCalls stores metadata by default, not complete prompts/transcripts.

Sentry should avoid collecting reconnect secrets or other sensitive tokens.

Full NPC conversations are game content and may be persisted as part of session state; retention should follow the 7-day abandoned-session policy unless product requirements later differ.