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Database / Supabase basics Interview Questions

What is the difference between the anon key and the service role key in Supabase?

Both are API keys generated per project, but they carry very different levels of trust and belong in very different places.

anon keyservice_role key
Safe to expose in frontend/client codeMust stay server-side only, never shipped to clients
Subject to Row Level Security policiesBypasses Row Level Security entirely
Used for normal user-facing requestsUsed for trusted admin tasks like migrations or backend jobs

Because the service role key skips RLS, leaking it — for example by embedding it in a mobile app or a public Edge Function response — effectively grants full read/write access to the entire database.

Which key bypasses Row Level Security entirely?
Where should the service_role key be used?

More Related questions...

What is Supabase? What is the purpose of PostgreSQL within Supabase? What are the core services offered by Supabase? What is Supabase Authentication used for? What are the types of storage available in Supabase Storage? Define Row Level Security in Supabase? Describe the Supabase client library? What is the purpose of Supabase Edge Functions? List the API types Supabase auto-generates from your schema? How do you create a new Supabase project and connect to it? How does Supabase auto-generate REST APIs from a database schema? Why is Row Level Security important in a client-facing Supabase app? How does Supabase Realtime broadcast database changes to clients? What is the difference between the anon key and the service role key in Supabase? When should you use an Edge Function instead of a Postgres database function? How do you troubleshoot a valid query being blocked by Row Level Security? What is the difference between using Supabase Auth and rolling your own JWT-based authentication? How is data validated before insertion in a Supabase table? Why do we use database migrations in Supabase projects? What happens when a Postgres trigger fires on a table linked to Edge Function webhooks? Explain the execution flow of a request through Supabase's auto-generated API? Why doesn't Supabase recommend using the service_role key on the client? How can you optimize Postgres connection pooling for serverless Edge Functions? Explain the internal working of Row Level Security policy evaluation in Postgres? What is the difference between pgvector similarity search and hybrid search in Supabase? Which is better for real-time collaboration, Supabase Realtime or client-side polling, and why? How does Supabase handle connection pooling for high-concurrency workloads? Explain the lifecycle of a Supabase Auth session token? When would you choose self-hosting Supabase over the managed cloud offering? How do you optimize full-text search performance on a large Postgres table in Supabase?
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