A small checklist for agent credential rotation

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

When Sift rotates a key mid review, an agent holding the old credential gets a 403 on its next Decisions call and, without an auth specific path, either crashes the case or retries a dead credential until timeout. Give the agent a credential refresh step: on a 403, pause the case, reload the current key from your secret store, test it with a harmless read, and resume the same case from its saved state. If the refreshed credential also returns 403, stop and escalate, because that is a scope problem a human must fix, not a rotation hiccup.

fraud agent hit sift decisions api 403 after key rotation mid-review

Use this when

• An agent review failed with a Sift 403 timestamped right after a key rotation.
• The agent retried the same failing call many times before dying.
• Other services using the refreshed key work fine.

Not for this skill when

• The new key itself lacks Decisions scope. Refreshing loads the same under scoped key; fix scope in Sift first.
• The 403 is on one case only while others succeed. That points at case state, not credentials.

Steps

1. Confirm the diagnosis from logs: the failing calls use the pre rotation credential fingerprint and start failing at rotation time. Verify: log timestamps and credential version line up with the rotation record.
2. Store the case state outside the agent run, decisions made, evidence gathered, next step, so a paused case can resume in a fresh run. Verify: a killed test run resumes from saved state without redoing completed steps.
3. Add the auth recovery path: on 403, reload credentials from the secret store, validate with a read call, and continue the case; on a second 403, halt and escalate with the case state attached. Verify: a staged rotation mid review completes after one refresh with no human touch.
4. Make credential loading dynamic at run start, never baked into prompts, configs, or cached clients built at deploy time. Verify: a new run after rotation uses the new credential with no redeploy.
5. Add rotation to the agent runbook test: every vendor key rotation triggers a smoke review on a test case within the hour. Verify: the smoke test result is recorded for the last rotation.

Variant phrasings

agent 403 sift after key rotation resume review

Resume phrasing.

fraud agent auth failed mid case sift

Mid case phrasing.

agent keeps using rotated api key

Stale credential phrasing.

Compatibility: Any agent framework calling Sift Decisions, with a secret manager such as Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, or GCP Secret Manager. The refresh and resume pattern is vendor agnostic.

Why it happens

Agents are long lived compared with the calls they make, and they cache clients and credentials at startup. Rotations are deliberately unannounced to old holders, so the first symptom is a mid task 403. Frameworks without an auth specific recovery treat it as a generic tool error, and generic retry logic is exactly wrong for a credential that will never work again.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Never put the credential itself in the agent prompt or case notes for debugging. Log a fingerprint or version label only.
• A refresh loop can hammer the API if the secret store itself is stale. Cap refresh attempts at one per run, then escalate.
• Rotate on a schedule the agent team knows. Surprise rotations during peak review hours turn a recovery feature into an incident.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_DxUiSsPH-pUwZIv4Okz8Og

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_DxUiSsPH-pUwZIv4Okz8Og

Thread query: fraud agent hit sift decisions api 403 after key rotation mid-review

TL;DR: When Sift rotates a key mid review, an agent holding the old credential gets a 403 on its next Decisions call and, without an auth specific path, either crashes the case or retries a dead credential until timeout. Give the agent a credential refresh step: on a 403, pause the case, reload the current key from your secret store, test it with a harmless read, and resume the same case from its saved state. If the refreshed credential also returns 403, stop and escalate, because that is a scope problem a human must fix, not a rotation hiccup.

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

App credentials expire on a schedule everyone forgets: a secret created for a year dies mid-campaign, and the run fails with auth errors that look like permission loss. Check the credential expiry on the app registration, replace secrets with certificates or managed identity where the platform allows, store the new credential in the vault the agent actually reads, and add an expiry check at run start so the next expiry is a warning, not an outage.

agent couldn't read the shared mailbox after the service principal token expired mid-run; delegated auth failed

Use this when

• Agent mailbox reads fail mid-run with auth errors after working earlier.
• The app registration shows a secret or certificate past its end date.

Not for this skill when

• An admin revoked the app permissions deliberately. Do not re-grant without the security review.
• Access fails for one mailbox only. That is mailbox-level permission, not the app credential.

Steps

1. Confirm the failure time against the credential end date on the app registration. Verify: expiry, not revocation, matches the timeline.
2. Inventory every place the old credential is stored: vault entry, agent config and any cached copy. Verify: all copies are listed before rotation.
3. Create the replacement credential, preferring a certificate or managed identity, and update the vault first, then restart the agent so it picks up the new value. Verify: the agent authenticates with the new credential in a test call.
4. Grant or re-consent the app permissions if the new credential model requires it, keeping scopes to the mailboxes the agent needs. Verify: a shared mailbox read succeeds through the agent path.
5. Add a run-start credential lifetime check that warns when fewer than 30 days remain. Verify: the check reports the new credential horizon correctly.

Variant phrasings

service principal secret expired agent mailbox access

The expired secret variant.

app credential rotation managed identity mail triage

The rotation variant.

Compatibility: Microsoft Entra ID app registrations, secrets, certificates and managed identities with Graph mail access.

Why it happens

Human admins feel credential expiry through calendar reminders and consoles. An unattended agent feels it as a silent total failure at 3 AM, because nothing in the run path surfaces an approaching end date.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Application permissions for mail are tenant-wide unless scoped with application access policies. Scope the agent to its triage mailboxes.
• Two overlapping credentials during rotation prevent a hard cutover gap. Remove the old one after the new one is proven.
• Record credential expiry in the same tracker as domain and certificate renewals so one review catches all.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_t-EwTd86LSTYqMYeCcyc-Q

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_t-EwTd86LSTYqMYeCcyc-Q

Thread query: agent couldn't read the shared mailbox after the service principal token expired mid-run; delegated auth failed

TL;DR: App credentials expire on a schedule everyone forgets: a secret created for a year dies mid-campaign, and the run fails with auth errors that look like permission loss. Check the credential expiry on the app registration, replace secrets with certificates or managed identity where the platform allows, store the new credential in the vault the agent actually reads, and add an expiry check at run start so the next expiry is a warning, not an outage.

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

Ironclad API calls returning 'unauthorized' right after a key rotation mean the old key is still cached somewhere: a stale environment variable, a long-lived worker process, a second integration (Salesforce, a webhook verifier, an ETL job) that also uses the key. First prove the new key works with a direct call, then inventory every place the key is configured, reload environments, restart workers, and watch Ironclad's API logs for which credential is actually being presented. Rotate the key, then rotate every copy of it.

The query

Ironclad API 'unauthorized' after rotating the API key  -  where the old key is cached

Use this when

• Ironclad API returns unauthorized immediately after you rotated the API key
• Some services work with the new key while others still fail
• The failure started at the exact time of the rotation

Not for

• Unauthorized errors that predate the rotation - those are scope or environment problems
• Webhook signature verification failures - those use a signing secret, not the API key
• Rate-limit errors, which are a different status and message

Steps

1. Prove the new key works in isolation

Make one direct API call with the new key from your shell, outside all your services. If it succeeds, the key itself is fine and the problem is distribution; if it fails, the rotation did not complete or you are hitting the wrong environment.

curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -H "your auth header \
  https://example.com/api/v1/test

Expected output: a 200. Anything else means the key or the endpoint is wrong before you touch your services.

2. Inventory every place the key is configured

List all consumers: backend services, workers, cron jobs, the Salesforce integration, webhook handlers, data pipelines, and local developer environments. The old key survives in exactly the place you forget - commonly a systemd unit's EnvironmentFile, a Kubernetes secret that was not re-applied, or a teammate's .env. Expected output: a written list of every consumer, each marked updated or pending.

3. Reload configuration and restart long-lived processes

Update the secret in each consumer's store, then restart the processes so they pick it up. Environment variables are read at process start; a worker started before the rotation keeps the old key in memory until restarted, no matter what the secret store says now. Expected output: after restarts, each consumer's next API call succeeds.

4. Identify the failing caller from Ironclad's side

Check Ironclad's API request logs for unauthorized attempts around the failure times. The logs show which credential (often by key prefix or label) each call presented, which tells you exactly which consumer still sends the old key instead of guessing. Expected output: the log names the stale caller; you update that one consumer and the errors stop.

Tool compatibility

Ironclad public API with API-key authentication. The rotation pattern is the same for any secret-store setup: environment variables, Kubernetes secrets, vault services.

Variant phrasings

• Ironclad API unauthorized after rotating API key
• Ironclad API key rotation old key cached where
• Ironclad 401 after API key change
• Ironclad API authentication failed new key works old key still used

Why it happens

API keys are bearer credentials copied into every consumer's configuration, and rotation changes the server-side value while every copy stays stale until updated. Long-lived processes compound it by caching the key in memory at startup. The failure is always 'some copy of the old key is still in use' - the debugging task is finding all the copies, not questioning the new key.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Keep the old key's revocation timed: revoke it only after every consumer is confirmed on the new one, or stragglers hard-fail instead of warning.
• CI/CD pipelines and scheduled jobs are the most-forgotten consumers - check them explicitly.
• If two environments (staging, production) share a key name, make sure you rotated the right environment's key.
• Log which key label each service uses at startup; it makes the next rotation a ten-minute job.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_1-smUQRF7L7tXR4zu7JUUw

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_1-smUQRF7L7tXR4zu7JUUw

Thread query: Ironclad API 'unauthorized' after rotating the API key - where the old key is cached

TL;DR: Ironclad API calls returning 'unauthorized' right after a key rotation mean the old key is still cached somewhere: a stale environment variable, a long-lived worker process, a second integration (Salesforce, a webhook verifier, an ETL job) that also uses the key. First prove the new key works with a direct call, then inventory every place the key is configured, reload environments, restart workers, and watch Ironclad's API logs for which credential is actually being presented. Rotate the key, then rotate every copy of it.