api-credential-rotationlisted

# API credential rotation Integration credentials are long-lived, broadly scoped, and shared between systems, which makes them the most commonly leaked secret and the most disruptive to rotate if rotation was never designed. ## Method 1. **Scope every credential to the minimum.** Read-only where possible and per-integration rather than one key used everywhere (see authz-design). 2. **Store in a secret manager, never in code or config files.** Both end up in version control and in logs (see secrets-management). 3. **Support two valid credentials at once.** Overlapping validity is what makes rotation possible without downtime, and it must be designed rather than improvised. 4. **Rotate on a schedule and on suspicion.** Routine rotation proves the process works before an incident requires it under pressure. 5. **Separate credentials per environment.** A test key with production access is a production incident waiting for a mistake. 6. **Alert on credential expiry ahead of time.** Expired integration credentials are a common and entirely preventable outage (see tls-and-certificates). 7. **Know the revocation path before you need it.** How fast you can invalidate a leaked key determines the damage window (see secret-scanning). ## Boundaries Rotation limits exposure duration; it does not detect misuse, which needs monitoring. Some providers do not support overlapping credentials, forcing a brief outage. Credentials held by a vendor on your beha