Auth, Mandate, and Capability Flow
Implement production-safe authentication with secure credential handling and key rotation practices.
#Purpose
Covers credential provisioning, request authentication, secret storage, and rotation operations.
#Integration prerequisites
- Centralized secrets manager with access logs and rotation workflow.
- Environment-specific credentials separated by least privilege.
- Runbook for compromised key response and emergency revocation.
#Request and response patterns
- Authenticated requests include required credentials and signature metadata.
- Unauthorized responses indicate missing, invalid, or expired credentials.
- Forbidden responses indicate valid credentials lacking required permission scope.
#Lifecycle and state model
- Provision credentials with environment scope and owner assignment.
- Deploy credentials through secure secret distribution path.
- Rotate keys on schedule with overlapping validity window and cutover verification.
- Revoke old credentials and confirm no residual usage remains.
#Error and failure taxonomy
- Invalid signature due to timestamp skew or signing mismatch.
- Expired or revoked key still in use by one or more services.
- Permission scope mismatch between endpoint and credential role.
#Retry and idempotency guidance
Do not blindly retry unauthorized responses; first verify key validity, clock sync, and credential scope.
#Observability and debugging entry points
- Alert on spikes in 401 and 403 responses by service and environment.
- Track key-version usage to verify rotation cutovers.
- Log authentication failures with sanitized context only.