- Garrett Galow of WorkOS described a platform where sign-in, secrets storage and request logs come built in, so non-engineers can ship internal apps.
- He conceded that apps are open to all employees by default for now, and that group and role permissions are still planned.
Garrett Galow, a product manager at WorkOS, described how his company built security into the platform that lets any employee ship internal apps. He spoke on the AI Engineer show. Some of those apps hold customer data, so the stakes are real.
What was said
Galow's starting point was that building is now easy but shipping is not. He said the hard parts are where to deploy, how to make employees sign in, and how to keep keys out of code. In his words, "shipping it, making it available, even internally to your company, hasn't really gotten that much easier."
WorkOS built a platform called Atlas to cover those gaps. Every app sits behind the company's Okta single sign-on, so you cannot log in without company access. Requests are logged, so the team can work out what happened after a suspected leak. API keys and other secrets go into a managed store, Doppler, so builders need not worry about pushing one into the Git repository.
Galow said some apps carry a lot of personal data, such as customer tools and sales tools. He said, "We want it to be secure by default. We don't want to risk this." He said the catalog holds a few hundred apps, about 60 in regular use. Of those 60, 37% were built with no engineer in the commits.
Why it matters
Our reading: when sales and marketing staff build apps, safety cannot rest on each builder spotting a leaked key or a missing login. Galow's setup moves those checks into one shared system. Cheap building also means more apps that may touch customer data. Leaders who let staff ship with AI could ask three questions first. Does the platform enforce sign-in, hold the secrets and keep an audit trail? If not, each new app is a fresh, unreviewed risk.
The other side
Galow was open about the limits. Apps are open to every employee by default, and he said every app is discoverable because staff have access automatically. He also said that not every app should stay open to the whole company, since some data is sensitive. Group and role permissions are planned, not built. Until they arrive, sign-in alone does not separate one employee from another's data.
Logs also help after the fact rather than prevent a problem. In the portion we reviewed, Galow did not describe a code review; he said builders should not need security approval for standard apps. He is also presenting his employer's product and invited interested companies to talk to him.
Written by the WebPulse Newsroom with AI assistance, and checked by our editorial review: every quotation was verified against the recording's transcript. How we use AI.
The conversation this talking point comes from
- AI Engineer: Let Anyone at Your Company Ship Internal Apps with AI — Garrett Galow, WorkOS (2026-10-08)
