How to Secure Laravel Telescope in Production

What is Telescope?

Laravel Telescope is a debugging and monitoring tool that provides insights into requests, exceptions, database queries, and more. If accessible in production without authentication, it exposes sensitive application data.

Security Impact

Severity: High

• Request/response data exposed
• Database queries visible
• User information disclosed
• API requests revealed
• Performance metrics exposed

How to Fix

1. Restrict to Local Environment (Recommended)

// app/Providers/TelescopeServiceProvider.php
public function register()
{
    // Only register Telescope in local/staging
    if ($this->app->environment('local', 'staging')) {
        $this->app->register(\Laravel\Telescope\TelescopeServiceProvider::class);
    }
}

2. Implement Authorization Gate

// app/Providers/TelescopeServiceProvider.php
use Laravel\Telescope\Telescope;
use Laravel\Telescope\IncomingEntry;

protected function gate()
{
    Gate::define('viewTelescope', function ($user) {
        return in_array($user->email, [
            'admin@yourdomain.com',
        ]);
    });
}

public function register()
{
    Telescope::night();

    $this->hideSensitiveRequestDetails();

    Telescope::filter(function (IncomingEntry $entry) {
        if ($this->app->environment('production')) {
            return $entry->isReportableException() ||
                   $entry->isFailedRequest() ||
                   $entry->isFailedJob() ||
                   $entry->isScheduledTask() ||
                   $entry->hasMonitoredTag();
        }

        return true;
    });
}

3. Hide Sensitive Data

// app/Providers/TelescopeServiceProvider.php
protected function hideSensitiveRequestDetails()
{
    Telescope::hideRequestParameters(['password', 'password_confirmation']);

    Telescope::hideRequestHeaders([
        'cookie',
        'x-csrf-token',
        'x-xsrf-token',
    ]);
}

4. Disable in Production Entirely

// config/telescope.php
'enabled' => env('TELESCOPE_ENABLED', false),

# Local
TELESCOPE_ENABLED=true

# Production
TELESCOPE_ENABLED=false

5. Protect Route with Middleware

// routes/web.php - If you must have it in production
Route::middleware(['auth', 'admin'])->group(function () {
    Telescope::routes();
});

Verification Steps

1. Visit /telescope without authentication
2. Should be blocked or return 404
3. Verify gate authorization works
4. Check sensitive data is hidden
5. Confirm it's disabled in production

Best Practices

• Use only in local/staging
• Never expose to public
• Implement strong authentication
• Hide sensitive parameters
• Regularly prune old entries
• Use role-based access

Related Issues

• Laravel Debug Mode
• Ignition Exposure
• Session Configuration