When implementing authentication and authorization in an Akka HTTP application, what are some best practices and key considerations?

When implementing authentication and authorization in Akka HTTP, consider the following best practices:

1. Use built-in directives : Leverage Akka HTTP’s built-in directives like authenticateBasic, authenticateOAuth2, or authorize to handle common scenarios.

2. Separate concerns : Keep authentication and authorization logic separate from business logic for maintainability and testability.

3. Stateless approach : Prefer stateless mechanisms like JWT tokens to avoid server-side session management overhead.

4. Secure communication : Ensure secure transport using HTTPS to prevent credentials interception.

5. Validate input : Sanitize user inputs to protect against injection attacks.

6. Error handling : Provide clear error messages without revealing sensitive information about the system.

7. Scalability : Design with scalability in mind, considering token revocation and distributed systems.