Zero-Downtime API Key Rotation
Design a developer console flow for rotating a production API key without breaking active clients or exposing secret values.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
A compromised or aging API key must be replaced, but immediate revocation can interrupt production services. Teams need overlapping validity, usage evidence, scoped permissions, and a clear final cutoff.
User context
Maya maintains a payments integration used by three services. She needs to rotate its key after a staff change and confirm every client has migrated before revoking the old credential.
Product problem
Rotation should be fast under pressure while preventing accidental disclosure, indefinite overlap, and revocation of the wrong credential.
Objective
Create key inventory, replacement generation, migration monitoring, and old-key revocation for one production integration.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Inspect key scope, owner, age, and recent use
- Generate a replacement with appropriate permissions
- Track old and new key usage during overlap
- Revoke the old key with a final impact check
Screens and states
- Credential inventory
- Rotation setup
- Migration monitor
- Revocation review
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Maya opens the aging payments key and confirms its three consumers
- 02
She creates a scoped replacement and copies it once
- 03
The monitor shows two services migrated and one still using the old key
- 04
After the final service switches, she revokes the old key and records the reason
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Reveal secret material only once with safe copy handling
- Show key fingerprint, scope, owner, environment, age, and last use
- Separate key creation from old-key revocation
- Require impact review, typed confirmation, and an audit event for revocation
Constraints
- Raw key values cannot be retrieved later
- Overlap must have a configurable expiry
- Users may rotate only credentials within their authorized environment
Reality check
States worth considering
Ready-to-use content
Mock data
Use this content to test hierarchy and realistic data states. You can expand it when the concept needs more depth.
Key consumers
- checkout-api, old key last used 2 minutes ago
- refund-worker, new key active
- billing-sync, old key last used 18 minutes ago
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four desktop screens covering planned rotation and emergency revocation
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.