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Security & Deployment

DevUI is designed as a sample application for local development. This page covers security considerations and best practices if you need to expose DevUI beyond localhost.

Warning

DevUI is not intended for production use. For production deployments, build your own custom interface using the Agent Framework SDK with appropriate security measures.

Coming Soon

DevUI documentation for C# is coming soon. Please check back later or refer to the Python documentation for conceptual guidance.

UI Modes

DevUI offers two modes that control access to features:

Developer Mode (Default)

Full access to all features:

  • Debug panel with trace information
  • Hot reload for rapid development (/v1/entities/{id}/reload)
  • Deployment tools (/v1/deployments)
  • Verbose error messages for debugging
devui ./agents  # Developer mode is the default

User Mode

Simplified, restricted interface:

  • Chat interface and conversation management
  • Entity listing and basic info
  • Developer APIs disabled (hot reload, deployment)
  • Generic error messages (details logged server-side)
devui ./agents --mode user

Authentication

Enable Bearer token authentication with the --auth flag:

devui ./agents --auth

When authentication is enabled:

  • For localhost: A token is auto-generated and displayed in the console
  • For network-exposed deployments: You must provide a token via DEVUI_AUTH_TOKEN environment variable or --auth-token flag
# Auto-generated token (localhost only)
devui ./agents --auth

# Custom token via CLI
devui ./agents --auth --auth-token "your-secure-token"

# Custom token via environment variable
export DEVUI_AUTH_TOKEN="your-secure-token"
devui ./agents --auth --host 0.0.0.0

All API requests must include a valid Bearer token in the Authorization header:

curl http://localhost:8080/v1/entities \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer your-token-here"

If you need to expose DevUI to end users (not recommended for production):

devui ./agents --mode user --auth --host 0.0.0.0

This configuration:

  • Restricts developer-facing APIs
  • Requires authentication
  • Binds to all network interfaces

Security Features

DevUI includes several security measures:

Feature Description
Localhost binding Binds to 127.0.0.1 by default
User mode Restricts developer APIs
Bearer authentication Optional token-based auth
Local entity loading Only loads entities from local directories or in-memory
No remote execution No remote code execution capabilities

Best Practices

Credentials Management

  • Store API keys and secrets in .env files
  • Never commit .env files to source control
  • Use .env.example files to document required variables
# .env.example (safe to commit)
OPENAI_API_KEY=your-api-key-here
AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT=https://your-resource.openai.azure.com/

# .env (never commit)
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-actual-key
AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT=https://my-resource.openai.azure.com/

Network Security

  • Keep DevUI bound to localhost for development
  • Use a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy) if external access is needed
  • Enable HTTPS through the reverse proxy
  • Implement proper authentication at the proxy level

Entity Security

  • Review all agent/workflow code before running
  • Only load entities from trusted sources
  • Be cautious with tools that have side effects (file access, network calls)

Resource Cleanup

Register cleanup hooks to properly close credentials and resources on shutdown:

from azure.identity.aio import DefaultAzureCredential
from agent_framework import ChatAgent
from agent_framework.azure import AzureOpenAIChatClient
from agent_framework_devui import register_cleanup, serve

credential = DefaultAzureCredential()
client = AzureOpenAIChatClient()
agent = ChatAgent(name="MyAgent", chat_client=client)

# Register cleanup hook - credential will be closed on shutdown
register_cleanup(agent, credential.close)
serve(entities=[agent])

MCP Tools Considerations

When using MCP (Model Context Protocol) tools with DevUI:

# Correct - DevUI handles cleanup automatically
mcp_tool = MCPStreamableHTTPTool(url="http://localhost:8011/mcp", chat_client=chat_client)
agent = ChatAgent(tools=mcp_tool)
serve(entities=[agent])

Important

Don't use async with context managers when creating agents with MCP tools for DevUI. Connections will close before execution. MCP tools use lazy initialization and connect automatically on first use.

Next Steps

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