Authentication & Authorization

Authentication schemes, API key scopes, actor identity, and role-based access control.

Strait supports multiple authentication mechanisms and a layered authorization model: API key scopes for machine access and role-based access control (RBAC) for user access.

See also: OIDC Authentication, RBAC & Policy Authorization, API Key Rotation, Audit Events, Security.

Authentication Schemes

1. Internal Secret

A global shared secret for administrative tasks and internal service-to-service communication.

Configure via the INTERNAL_SECRET environment variable.

# Header-based
curl -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret-here" https://strait.dev/v1/jobs

# Bearer token (alternative)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer your-secret-here" https://strait.dev/v1/jobs

Internal secret auth grants full access to all endpoints — no scope or role checks are applied. This is the path used by the app to communicate with Strait.

2. API Keys

Per-project API keys with scoped permissions. Recommended for external integrations.

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer strait_your_api_key_here" https://strait.dev/v1/jobs

API keys:

• Start with strait_ prefix
• Are SHA-256 hashed before storage
• Track last_used_at timestamps
• Support expires_at for time-limited access
• Can be revoked at any time
• Support rotation with grace periods (replaced_by_key_id, grace_expires_at)
• Are scoped to a project and a set of permissions

3. JWT Run Tokens (SDK)

Short-lived JWTs scoped to a specific run, used by the SDK for /sdk/v1 endpoints.

• Algorithm: HS256
• Subject: The runID
• Signing Key: JWT_SIGNING_KEY environment variable

4. OIDC Bearer Tokens (Optional)

For user-facing API calls, non-strait_ bearer tokens can be validated via OIDC when configured.

• Configure issuer/audience/public-key verifier settings in server config
• Valid tokens are mapped to actor identity and project context
• OIDC and internal-secret header-based identity can coexist during rollout

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API Key Scopes

Every API key has a list of scopes that control what it can do. Scopes are enforced on every request.

Available Scopes

Scope	Description
*	Full access (wildcard)
jobs:read	List and get jobs, job groups, environments, dependencies, versions, health
jobs:write	Create, update, delete jobs, groups, environments, dependencies
jobs:trigger	Trigger job runs (single and bulk)
runs:read	List and get runs, events, checkpoints, outputs, debug bundles
runs:write	Cancel runs, replay, update metadata, set debug mode
workflows:read	List and get workflows, steps, runs, labels, dry-run, graph
workflows:write	Create, update, delete workflows, pause/resume, approve/skip steps
workflows:trigger	Trigger workflow runs, retry workflow runs
secrets:read	List job secrets
secrets:write	Create and delete job secrets
api-keys:manage	Create, list, and revoke API keys
rbac:manage	Create/update/delete roles, assign/remove members
stats:read	View queue statistics

Backwards Compatibility

API keys with empty scopes ([]) retain full access. This ensures pre-existing keys continue to work after the scope enforcement upgrade.

Scope Validation

Unknown scopes are rejected at API key creation time:

# This will return 400
curl -X POST https://strait.dev/v1/api-keys \
  -d '{"project_id":"proj_1","name":"bad-key","scopes":["invalid:scope"]}'

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Actor Identity

Every request is attributed to an actor for audit purposes.

How Actor Identity Works

API key requests: The actor is always apikey:<key-id> with type api_key. Actor headers (X-Actor-Id) are ignored on API key requests to prevent impersonation.

Internal secret requests: The app can pass user identity via headers:

curl -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret" \
     -H "X-Project-Id: proj_123" \
     -H "X-Actor-Id: user_abc123" \
     -H "X-Actor-Email: [e-mail]" \
     -H "X-Actor-Name: Alice" \
     https://strait.dev/v1/jobs

When these headers are present, Strait:

1. Sets actor_type = "user" and actor_id = "user_abc123" in the request context
2. Applies X-Project-Id to request context when project-scoped authorization is required
3. Asynchronously syncs the actor profile to the known_actors table
4. Records the actor as created_by or updated_by on mutations

Audit Columns

The following tables have audit columns:

• jobs — created_by, updated_by
• workflows — created_by, updated_by
• job_runs — created_by
• workflow_runs — created_by

These are populated automatically from the request actor context.

Security: API key auth never honors X-Actor-Id headers. This prevents API key holders from impersonating users to gain RBAC permissions. Only the internal secret auth path trusts actor headers.

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Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

RBAC provides fine-grained access control for users (as opposed to API keys, which use scopes).

How It Works

1. Roles define a set of permissions (same scope strings as API keys)
2. Members link a user (from your external auth provider) to a role within a project
3. When a user makes a request (via internal secret + X-Actor-Id), the middleware loads their role and checks permissions

System Roles

Four built-in system roles are available:

Role	Permissions
admin	* (full access)
operator	jobs:read, jobs:write, jobs:trigger, runs:read, runs:write, workflows:read, workflows:write, workflows:trigger, secrets:read, stats:read, rbac:manage
viewer	jobs:read, runs:read, workflows:read, stats:read
triggerer	jobs:read, jobs:trigger, runs:read, workflows:read, workflows:trigger

System roles cannot be modified or deleted.

Custom Roles

Create project-specific roles with any combination of permissions:

curl -X POST https://strait.dev/v1/roles \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret" \
  -d '{
    "name": "deployer",
    "description": "Can manage and trigger jobs, but not manage keys or roles",
    "permissions": ["jobs:read", "jobs:write", "jobs:trigger", "runs:read", "runs:write"]
  }'

Managing Members

Assign a user to a role:

curl -X POST https://strait.dev/v1/members \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret" \
  -d '{"user_id": "user_abc123", "role_id": "role_xyz"}'

List project members:

curl https://strait.dev/v1/members -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret"

Remove a member:

curl -X DELETE https://strait.dev/v1/members/user_abc123 \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret"

Permission Resolution

The requirePermission middleware resolves authorization in this order:

1. Internal secret (no scopes in context) → allow immediately
2. API key → check if key’s scopes include the required permission
3. User → load role permissions from DB (cached for 30s), check if role includes the required permission

Request → Auth middleware → requirePermission(scope)
                                  │
                                  ├─ scopes == nil? → ALLOW (internal secret)
                                  │
                                  ├─ actorType == "api_key"?
                                  │     └─ HasScope(scopes, required)? → ALLOW / 403
                                  │
                                  ├─ actorType == "user"?
                                  │     └─ GetUserPermissions(project, user)
                                  │           └─ HasScope(permissions, required)? → ALLOW / 403
                                  │
                                  └─ unknown type → 403

Permission Cache

User permissions are cached for 30 seconds to avoid hitting the database on every request. The cache is automatically invalidated when:

• A member’s role is changed (POST /v1/members)
• A member is removed (DELETE /v1/members/{userID})

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Middleware Chain

Authentication flows through these middleware in apps/strait/internal/api/middleware.go:

1. apiKeyOrSecretAuth — Routes to API key auth (strait_ bearer), OIDC bearer auth (optional), or internal secret auth
2. apiKeyAuth — Validates key hash, checks revocation/expiration/rotation grace, sets scopes + actorType=api_key in context
3. internalSecretAuth — Constant-time secret comparison, optionally extracts actor from X-Actor-* and project from X-Project-Id
4. oidcAuth — Validates configured OIDC bearer tokens and maps claims into actor/project context
5. requirePermission(scope) — Checks authorization based on actor type (see Permission Resolution above)
6. runTokenAuth — JWT validation for SDK endpoints only

Managing API Keys

Create

curl -X POST https://strait.dev/v1/api-keys \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret" \
  -d '{
    "project_id": "proj_123",
    "name": "ci-deploy-key",
    "scopes": ["jobs:read", "jobs:write", "jobs:trigger"]
  }'

The response includes the raw key (shown only once):

{
  "id": "key_abc",
  "key": "strait_abc123...",
  "project_id": "proj_123",
  "name": "ci-deploy-key",
  "scopes": ["jobs:read", "jobs:write", "jobs:trigger"]
}

List

curl https://strait.dev/v1/api-keys?project_id=proj_123 \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret"

Revoke

curl -X DELETE https://strait.dev/v1/api-keys/key_abc \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret"

Revoked keys immediately return 401 on subsequent requests.

Rotate (with Grace Period)

curl -X POST https://strait.dev/v1/api-keys/key_abc/rotate \
  -H "X-Internal-Secret: your-secret" \
  -d '{"name":"ci-deploy-key-rotated","grace_period_seconds":3600}'

Rotation issues a new key and marks the previous key as replaced. The old key can remain valid until grace_expires_at to support zero-downtime credential rollouts.