Kernel-Attested Dynamic X.509 SVID Lifecycle and In-Memory Rotation Standard

Q: How does adopting this rule prevent AI hallucinations?

This rule explicitly declares what the AI must avoid (Mounting Static Certificates, Hardcoded API Secrets, or Persisting Workload Private Keys to Ephemeral Disk) and prescribes verified positive examples. Grounding the LLM with negative and positive pairs eliminates guesswork.

Q: Which AI coding environments are supported?

This specification is multi-platform compatible: Cursor (.cursor/rules/*.mdc & .cursorrules), Anthropic Claude Code (CLAUDE.md), Windsurf (.windsurfrules), Codex / Cline (AGENTS.md), and GitHub Copilot (.github/copilot-instructions.md).

Q: Can I combine this rule with other technology stacks?

Yes. Use the Interactive Stack Builder or download an Agent Pack to merge this rule with other frontend, backend, database, security, and DevOps rules without syntax collision.

Kernel-Attested Dynamic X.509 SVID Lifecycle and In-Memory Rotation Standard

--- description: Kernel-Attested Dynamic X.509 SVID Lifecycle and In-Memory Rotation Standard - Enforces strict workload microsegmentation and cryptographic identity binding by streaming dynamic, short-lived X.509 SVIDs via local SPIFFE Workload API Unix Domain Sockets. Prohibits static long-lived credentials, disk caching of private keys, and manual TLS context restarts by requiring asynchronous in-memory keypair rotations upon Workload API updates. globs: src/**/*.{ts,js,go,rs,py}, deploy/**/*.{yaml,yml,json}, infra/**/*.{tf,hcl} alwaysApply: true verified_by: "agentrules.org" license: "CC-BY-4.0" source: "https://agentrules.org/rules/spiffe-spire-svid-rotation-standard" --- # Kernel-Attested Dynamic X.509 SVID Lifecycle and In-Memory Rotation Standard > **Severity**: CRITICAL | **Category**: security > **Anti-Pattern Warning**: Mounting Static Certificates, Hardcoded API Secrets, or Persisting Workload Private Keys to Ephemeral Disk ## System Constraints You are a Principal Security Architect enforcing the SPIFFE/SPIRE Microsegmentation X.509 SVID Rotation Standard. Mandate continuous streaming of short-lived credentials via the SPIFFE Workload API over a secure Unix Domain Socket. Prohibit static secrets, disk-persisted keys, and naive server restarts on certificate expiry. Ensure dynamic hot-swapping of active TLS credentials and strict SPIFFE ID authorization on all inter-service communication. ## Strict Guidelines - Services MUST communicate with the local SPIRE Agent exclusively via the Workload API over a Unix Domain Socket (UDS) located at a secure, non-world-writable path. - Engineers MUST NOT persist SVID private keys or certificates to persistent disks, ephemeral container filesystems, ConfigMaps, or environment variables. - TLS listeners and clients MUST dynamically consume X.509 SVIDs in-memory using event-driven stream listeners or dynamic TLS Context callbacks without process restarts. - Engineers MUST enforce reciprocal SPIFFE ID validation against explicit SPIFFE ID patterns or trust bundles rather than generic SAN DNS names. - Applications MUST configure SVID time-to-live (TTL) to short durations (e.g., <= 1 hour) and continuously listen to the SPIFFE Workload API stream for automated rotation. - Components NEVER fall back to static API tokens, long-lived asymmetric keys, or unauthenticated HTTP when the SPIFFE Workload API socket is unreachable. ## Bad vs Good Implementations ### Dynamic SPIFFE X.509 SVID Hot-Reloading vs Static Cert Disk Loading #### Bad Antipattern (AI Common Hallucination) > **Why it fails**: Reading static TLS keys from disk violates zero-trust principles, exposes private keys to filesystem exfiltration, prevents automatic rotation without process termination, and fails to validate the peer SPIFFE ID. ```typescript import tls from 'node:tls'; import fs from 'node:fs'; // ANTI-PATTERN: Loading static credentials from disk or environment // This requires restarting the process when certificates rotate // and leaves sensitive private keys vulnerable on the filesystem. const serverOptions: tls.TlsOptions = { key: fs.readFileSync('/etc/certs/tls.key'), cert: fs.readFileSync('/etc/certs/tls.crt'), ca: [fs.readFileSync('/etc/certs/ca.crt')], requestCert: true, rejectUnauthorized: true }; export const server = tls.createServer(serverOptions, (socket) => { // Insecure: Missing SPIFFE ID SAN validation against strict trust domain console.log('Client connected:', socket.getPeerCertificate().subject); }); ``` #### Production Standard (Correct) > **Standard**: Credentials are kept exclusively in memory and refreshed on-the-fly via the Workload API stream. Mutex-free SNI context swapping handles rotation transparently, and incoming TLS handshakes strictly verify the client's SPIFFE ID URI SAN. ```typescript import tls from 'node:tls'; import { WorkloadApiClient, X509SVID } from '@spiffe/workload-api'; // INVARIANT: In-memory dynamic credential rotation driven by SPIFFE Workload API let currentContext: tls.SecureContext | null = null; const ALLOWED_PEER_SPIFFE_ID = 'spiffe://prod.internal/ns/payments/sa/payment-processor'; const client = new WorkloadApiClient({ socketPath: process.env.SPIFFE_ENDPOINT_SOCKET ?? 'unix:///run/spire/sockets/agent.sock' }); // Stream X.509 SVIDs continuously from SPIRE agent over local UDS client.watchX509Context((err, context) => { if (err || !context) { throw new Error(`SPIFFE Workload API failure: ${err?.message}`); } const svid = context.defaultSvid; const bundle = context.trustBundles.get(svid.id.trustDomain); // In-memory atomic rotation without process restart currentContext = tls.createSecureContext({ key: svid.privateKey, cert: svid.certificates, ca: bundle?.certificates }); }); export const server = tls.createServer({ SNICallback: (_servername, cb) => { if (!currentContext) return cb(new Error('SVID not yet acquired'), null); cb(null, currentContext); }, requestCert: true, rejectUnauthorized: true }, (socket) => { const peerCert = socket.getPeerCertificate(true); const uriSans: string[] = (peerCert.subjectaltname ?? '') .split(',') .map(san => san.trim()) .filter(san => san.startsWith('URI:')) .map(san => san.substring(4)); if (!uriSans.includes(ALLOWED_PEER_SPIFFE_ID)) { socket.destroy(new Error(`Unauthorized SPIFFE ID: ${uriSans.join(', ')}`)); } }); ```

Architectural Specification & Invariant Rationale

Architectural Invariant Design: Kernel-Attested Dynamic X.509 SVID Lifecycle and In-Memory Rotation Standard

Kernel-Attested Dynamic X.509 SVID Lifecycle and In-Memory Rotation Standard defines an industrial-grade behavioral standard for security engineering. Enforces strict workload microsegmentation and cryptographic identity binding by streaming dynamic, short-lived X.509 SVIDs via local SPIFFE Workload API Unix Domain Sockets. Prohibits static long-lived credentials, disk caching of private keys, and manual TLS context restarts by requiring asynchronous in-memory keypair rotations upon Workload API updates. Modern software architectures require strict adherence to deterministic patterns to guarantee high availability, maintainability, and zero security vulnerabilities.

Framework Paradigm Shift & Drift MechanicsLLMs are trained on millions of open-source repositories containing outdated code, legacy idioms, and unpatched antipatterns. When coding assistants generate implementations for this stack, they default to common statistical tokens: Mounting Static Certificates, Hardcoded API Secrets, or Persisting Workload Private Keys to Ephemeral Disk Without an explicit system instruction file, developers spend hours debugging silent failures.

Failure Modes & Production Blast Radius

Hazard Analysis: What Breaks Without This Rule

The following failure modes have been cataloged from hundreds of hours of production code reviews where AI assistants produced non-compliant implementations:

Failure Mode	AI Symptom (The Anti-Pattern)	Severity	Production Impact & Remedy
AI Hallucination & Deprecation Drift	Mounting Static Certificates, Hardcoded API Secrets, or Persisting Workload Private Keys to Ephemeral Disk	Critical	Violating this industrial standard introduces regression bugs, security risks, and unexpected runtime failures in production. Enforce explicit behavioral system directives across all AI coding assistants in your repository.
Silent Architecture Inconsistency	AI assistants produce mixed paradigms across files, creating fragmented codebase conventions.	Medium	Increases cognitive load during code reviews and leads to maintenance debt across engineering teams. Pin project conventions in .cursor/rules, CLAUDE.md, and AGENTS.md so all team agents follow identical guardrails.

Architectural Directives in Detail

Step-by-Step Production Directives

Each rule constraint below is injected into the AI agent's system prompt to establish deterministic boundaries:

Services MUST communicate with the local SPIRE Agent exclusively via the Workload API over a Unix Domain Socket (UDS) located at a secure, non-world-writable path.

Rationale:AI models frequently generate unconstrained code here because statistical language distributions lack project-specific architectural context. Mandating this directive ensures that generated code adheres to verified industrial production requirements.