A paved road is a small set of approved components and patterns that make the secure choice the easiest one for developers. Start with the three or four things every team rebuilds: authentication, authorization checks, logging and data access. OWASP names a library of secure design patterns or paved road components as a way to prevent insecure design.
Why it works
Design reviews catch problems one feature at a time. A paved road prevents them before the review. If every service uses the same session handling, a flaw fixed once is fixed everywhere. If a developer has to pick between a vetted option and writing their own, most will take the vetted one as long as it is not painful.
The OWASP Secure Product Design Cheat Sheet points at Golden Path or Paved Road guidance when choosing libraries and services, and the Top 10 insecure design entry lists a library of secure design patterns in its prevention steps.
What to include first
Pick items where mistakes are costly and variation is pointless:
- Authentication and session handling.
- Authorization checks, with a standard way to declare who can do what.
- Input validation helpers for common types.
- Logging that records security events without leaking secrets.
- Secrets retrieval.
- A service template with safe defaults for headers, timeouts and limits.
- Approved choices for common dependencies.
How to build it
- Look at your last few design reviews and incident notes. Which questions keep coming up?
- Pick one and write the approved answer as a code sample plus a one page guide.
- Put it in a template repository or internal package so using it takes fewer steps than avoiding it.
- Ask two champions to adopt it first and report friction.
- Fix the friction before announcing it.
Keep it alive
A paved road rots if nobody owns it. Name an owner for each component, set a review date and publish a changelog. When a pattern is retired, give teams a migration path.
Treat exceptions as a signal. If three teams skip the same component, the component probably has a problem.
Measuring adoption
Count how many services start from the template, and how many design review findings relate to areas the road covers. Those two numbers show whether the investment pays off, without needing any outside benchmarks.
Dependencies on the road
The components themselves are dependencies and need monitoring. Safeguard's SBOM and dependency scanning can show where a given approved library is used and when a vulnerable version lingers. You can try a free scan at gold.safeguard.sh/scan.
A first pattern, end to end
Say sessions are handled differently in four services. Pick the best implementation, wrap it as a small shared package with safe defaults, and write a one page guide listing the three settings teams may change and the reasons for the rest. Ask one team to migrate and note how long it took. If it takes a day, the road is usable. If it takes a week, simplify before you invite anyone else.
Quick check
Should the paved road be mandatory?
Make it the default, not a rule. Mandatory roads that are slow create workarounds. A good road earns adoption.
How big should the first version be?
Small. One or two components that solve a real, repeated problem are better than a catalog nobody reads.
Sources
Last reviewed: 19 October 2026.
