Capability

Identity, signed workloads, and secrets

Keep temporary human access, agent signing, external secrets, AI governance, and automation credentials on separate reviewable paths.

Temporary-access requests

Account mapping and readiness

External secret connections

AI provider, memory, and guidance controls

Operational need

Operational automation needs explicit identity mapping, access policy, signing, provider, secret, and credential lifecycles without becoming an opaque credential silo.

The team can operate and revoke each trust path from its owning lifecycle without conflating human access, machine execution, secrets, AI, or automation credentials.

Operating signals

  • Automation needs credentials, but the source, permission, and usage path must stay reviewable.
  • AI assistance is useful only when the team controls provider credentials, model policy, source context, memory, guidance, skills, and scoped interface access.
  • Temporary access needs readiness, account mapping, eligibility, approvers, duration, and step-up—not merely a configured target.

What you get

Temporary-access requestsAccount mapping and readinessExternal secret connectionsAI provider, memory, and guidance controlsPer-agent identity and signed workloadsSigning-key rotationScoped automation credentials

Where it starts

Common starting points.

These examples enter the product surface that owns their state. They do not all become a case, ticket, owner, or shared evidence record automatically.

Who can request temporary access to this target?

Inspect imported directory identities, mapped accounts, target eligibility, named approvers, request state, duration, and any required step-up before access is granted.

Is the machine execution trust chain current?

Review per-agent enrollment and connection state, active signing key, rotation coverage, excluded agents, test state, and rollback availability.

Where does this runtime secret come from?

Use a named, testable external secret connection and store references with the workload instead of copying resolved plaintext into ordinary configuration records.

Which AI path is configured and healthy?

Select and validate provider credentials and model policy, then review usage, memory, source-context health, guidance, and enabled skills independently.

Which automation credentials can reach the operations interface?

Create scoped credentials, display the secret only at creation, inspect their metadata, and revoke them without changing human login or agent identity.

Can a privileged access path be prepared safely?

Use readiness, directory synchronization, discovery candidates, account mapping, target policy, approvers, and guarded remediation runs before enabling requests.

How it works

How work moves.

The product path below names its inputs, decisions, controls, and output without implying the same lifecycle applies to every capability.

  1. 01

    Establish identity

    Authenticate the operator, synchronize or import eligible identities where required, and keep human roles separate from machine credentials.

  2. 02

    Map and scope

    Map directory identities to managed accounts, define eligible targets and approvers, and scope automation credentials to their intended interface.

  3. 03

    Configure trust paths

    Test external secret connections, configure AI provider policy, and maintain signing keys without merging those credentials into one store.

  4. 04

    Approve or dispatch

    Apply request eligibility, approver and step-up policy to temporary access; use enrolled identity and signed work for agent execution.

  5. 05

    Observe and revoke

    Review request, credential, connection, usage, memory, and key-rotation state; revoke or roll back through the owning control surface.

Product model

Trust and access model.

The diagrams show that temporary human access, machine signing, external secrets, AI policy, and automation credentials are separate principals with separate lifecycle controls.

Temporary access

Identity, mapping, eligibility, and approval all have to align.

A request starts from an authenticated identity, mapped account, eligible target, approver policy, duration, and readiness state, with step-up applied when configured.

Diagram showing authenticated identity, account mapping, eligible target, readiness, approver policy, duration, and step-up leading to a temporary access decision.

Machine trust

Agent identity and signing keys have an observable lifecycle.

Signed workload verification is backed by staged key rotation with coverage, test, activation, retry, exclusion, cancellation, and rollback controls.

Diagram showing per-agent identity, signed workload verification, staged key distribution, coverage, testing, activation, exclusions, retry, and rollback.

Credential separation

Secrets and automation tokens do not borrow human identity.

External secret connections can be tested and synchronized; scoped automation credentials have their own creation, metadata, one-time secret display, and revocation path.

Diagram separating human sessions, external secret connections, agent credentials, and scoped automation tokens with independent test and revocation controls.

AI governance

Provider choice is only one part of the AI control surface.

Credentials and model policy sit beside usage, memory, source-context health, ingestion settings, guidance, skills, and scoped interface credentials.

Diagram showing AI provider credentials and model policy alongside usage, memory, context health, source settings, guidance, skills, and credential revocation.

What it includes

What the record shows.

These parts participate in the workflow. The record shows what was used and why it mattered.

Just-in-time access

Eligible users request time-bounded access to configured targets through account mappings, target policy, approvers, request state, and required step-up.

Directory identities, account maps, targets, eligibility, approvers, requests, and readiness

Agent identity and signing

Agent enrollment identity and signed workload verification are backed by an explicit key lifecycle with staged coverage, activation, test, re-push, exclusion, cancellation, and rollback.

Agent identity, workload signatures, signing keys, and rotation state

External secret connections

Named connections can be created, tested, resynchronized, updated, selected as default, and removed; workloads keep secret references on their owning path.

Secret connections, references, health, and synchronization

AI provider and context policy

Provider credentials and model settings can be validated while usage, retained memory, source-context health, ingestion settings, guidance, and managed skills remain inspectable.

Provider settings, credentials, usage, memory, context health, guidance, and skills

Automation credentials

Scoped credentials can be created for operations interfaces, shown once at creation, listed by metadata, and revoked without reusing a human session or agent credential.

Personal and administrative credential lifecycle

Privileged access preparation

Readiness, directory synchronization, discovery, account mapping, target configuration, approvers, and guarded remediation runs expose setup gaps before access requests depend on them.

Readiness, discovery, mapping, target policy, and guarded remediation

Control model

Controls stay specific to the workflow.

Integrations, AI assistance, routines, and agents use different permissions and records. The controls below describe this capability rather than a universal approval model.

Human sessions, temporary-access requests, agent enrollment, workload signing, secret connections, AI credentials, and automation credentials remain separate security principals and records.

Temporary access is limited by identity mapping, target eligibility, approver policy, duration, readiness, and step-up requirements; a configured target alone does not grant access.

Signing-key rotation is staged and observable, with explicit activation, exclusion, retry, test, cancellation, and rollback controls.

Provider validation confirms configured credentials and connectivity; it does not certify the content of an AI answer.

Credentials can be revoked on their owning path, and secret values are not described as a general-purpose shared plaintext store.

Value over time

Product path for Trust.

Identify

Keep identities distinct

Human sessions, agent credentials, and runtime secret paths have separate controls.

Authorize

Apply workflow-specific gates

Role checks, proposal approval, eligible targets, and step-up apply where configured.

Verify

Review signing and results

Agents verify signed workloads and return execution state, logs, and metadata.

Next step

Want to see trust on your stack?

Book a walkthrough and I will map this workflow to the integrations and controls you already use.