Secure AI Features — API Keys, JWT, and Rate Limiting in Spring Boot (2026)

📚 Tutorial hubs:
AI Developer Tutorials ·
Spring Boot ·
Angular ·
CRUD + REST guide

Source code: munonye-ai-chat-spring-angular on GitHub

Estimated reading time: 12–15 minutes · Last updated: July 1, 2026

Spring Boot secure OpenAI API patterns for production AI features. Required reading after M7-A in AI Developer Tutorials.

Rules

1. API keys only in server env / vault
2. Angular sends JWT, not OpenAI keys
3. Rate limit per user/IP
4. Validate and sanitize all prompts

JWT-secured controller

@RestController
@RequestMapping("/api/chat")
public class ChatController {
  @PostMapping
  @PreAuthorize("isAuthenticated()")
  @RateLimiter(name = "chat")
  public ChatResponse chat(@RequestBody ChatRequest req, Authentication auth) {
    // log user id, not full prompt in prod
    return new ChatResponse(chatClient.prompt().user(req.message()).call().content());
  }
}

Link Spring Boot hub for REST fundamentals.

Related:
AI Developer Tutorials hub ·
Angular CRUD Part 1 ·
Spring AI overview