Identity Interop

HELM is not an identity provider.

Identity systems answer:

• who is this principal?
• how was it authenticated?

HELM answers:

• is this side effect authorized under the current policy and scope?
• what proof exists for the allow or deny decision?

Recommended split

• OIDC / OAuth / SSO: authenticate humans and services
• SPIFFE / mTLS / workload identity: authenticate runtime workloads
• Teleport / bastion / session brokers: broker privileged access
• HELM: enforce execution authority at the side-effect boundary

Minimal metadata contract

When a trusted identity layer authenticates a principal, forward stable scope metadata into HELM receipts:

{
  "organization_id": "acme-operations",
  "scope_id": "platform.prod.deploy",
  "principal_id": "devops_lead"
}

These fields are optional and backward-compatible. They make it possible to move from local agent governance toward organization-scoped execution without changing the kernel contract.