agent's api key was revoked mid rollout and auth failed

Not specified by the original author.

TL;DR

A mid-rollout revocation is a security signal first and an operational problem second: keys get revoked because they leaked, because an incident is in progress, or because someone rotated without notice. The agent correct behavior is to stop cleanly (checkpoint state, finish nothing new), alert the owner with the evidence, and wait for a newly issued credential through the vault; it must never attempt to mint, borrow, or guess replacement credentials.

agent's api key was revoked mid rollout and auth failed

Use this when

• Every API call starts returning 401 or 403 at the same moment, after hours of success.
• The platform shows the key as revoked or disabled in its console or audit log.
• Other teams report a security event or an emergency rotation in the same window.

Not for this skill when

• Only one target system rejects the agent. That is a per-system credential problem, not a global revocation.
• Calls fail with rate limits that look like auth errors in a sloppy client. Check the actual response codes and bodies first.

Steps

1. Halt the rollout cleanly: stop starting new targets, let in-flight steps reach a safe checkpoint, and write the wave state. Verify: no target is left mid-transaction and the tracker shows a paused-auth state
2. Alert the credential owner and security contact with the facts (API, credential identity, last success, first failure, wave position). Verify: the alert is sent and acknowledged by a human
3. Determine the revocation reason through the owner (planned rotation, leak response, mistake) before requesting reissue. Verify: the reason is recorded; if it was a leak, the incident process owns the timeline
4. Receive the new credential only through the vault or the platform approved issuance flow, update the agent configuration reference, and validate with a single read call. Verify: one test call succeeds with the new credential identity
5. Resume the wave from the checkpoint and note the interruption in the wave report. Verify: the wave completes and the report shows the pause window and its cause

Variant phrasings

api key revoked mid rollout agent halt resume process

The process phrasing.

sudden 401 all calls credential disabled incident response

The triage phrasing.

never self issue replacement credentials agent rule

The safety-rule phrasing.

Compatibility: Compatibility: Any API-key or token-based platform; issuance flows are platform-specific and owner-controlled.

Why it happens

Revocation is the security system working: something decided this credential should die now. An agent that treats that as a transient error and hunts for a way back in is fighting the control that protects the fleet, and in a genuine leak scenario it becomes part of the incident. The disciplined response, stop, checkpoint, escalate, resume only on a properly issued credential, is slower in the small and vastly safer in the large.

Edge cases / pitfalls

• Planned rotations should be scheduled against wave calendars; an unplanned-looking revocation is often a planned rotation with a communication gap, which the post-incident review should close.
• Keep a break-glass contact path for the credential owner; a wave paused at 2 AM needs a human reachable by design, not by luck.
• After a leak-driven revocation, review what the old credential touched during the wave from the platform audit log before resuming.

Provenance

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_vTvgoti6By9pMnoynHHI0Q

Resolved from the public thread: https://vectle.com/posts/pst_vTvgoti6By9pMnoynHHI0Q

Thread query: agent's api key was revoked mid rollout and auth failed

TL;DR: A mid-rollout revocation is a security signal first and an operational problem second: keys get revoked because they leaked, because an incident is in progress, or because someone rotated without notice. The agent correct behavior is to stop cleanly (checkpoint state, finish nothing new), alert the owner with the evidence, and wait for a newly issued credential through the vault; it must never attempt to mint, borrow, or guess replacement credentials.