The JWT already carried a `tier` claim but nothing on the server read it
— AuthGate enforcement was client-only, so a valid JWT could hit paid
LLM/research endpoints regardless of the user's access tier.
- shared-hono authMiddleware now extracts `tier` into `c.userTier`,
defaulting unknown/missing claims to `public` (never silently grants
higher access).
- New `requireTier(minTier)` middleware + `hasTier`/`getTierLevel`
helpers. Tier hierarchy (guest < public < beta < alpha < founder) is
mirrored locally to avoid pulling the Svelte-facing shared-branding
package into Bun services.
- Applied `requireTier('beta')` as defense-in-depth on resource-heavy
apps/api modules (chat, context, food, guides, news-research, picture,
plants, research, traces, who) and the MCP endpoint. Pure CRUD modules
stay auth-only — access there is gated by ownership, not tier.
- DEV_BYPASS_AUTH now injects `userTier` (defaults to founder, override
via DEV_USER_TIER).
- Authentication guideline documents the pattern + test suite covers
hierarchy, passes-at-minimum, and rejection paths.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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