NOTE

Designing Authentication and Authorization

Identity proof, sessions/tokens, authorization policy, least privilege, service identity, revocation, and audit.

Software Architecture & EngineeringCreated Updated 1 min readhistorical

This is a historical learning note and may contain outdated or incomplete understanding.

Authentication answers who/what is calling; authorization answers what that principal may do to this resource.

Centralize identity protocols/key lifecycle where practical, but enforce resource authorization close to the owning service/domain. Use least privilege, short-lived credentials, explicit service identity, secure session/token storage, and auditable policy decisions.

JWT/OAuth/OIDC are building blocks, not authorization policy by themselves. Plan credential rotation, revocation/session termination, multi-tenant boundaries, and failure behavior.

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