Cryptography Key Lifecycle

cryptography-key-lifecycle

Registry Trigger

Use when

• A boundary selects cryptography or changes key lifecycle.
• Nonce, envelope, recovery, compromise, destruction, or deprecation changes.

Do not use when

• Route generic secret/config storage to secret-configuration-security.
• Route auth-only tokens/password hashing elsewhere.
• Keep provider APIs targeted; never invent primitives or claim compliance.

Skill Role

Define cryptographic lifecycle under authoritative policy without implementing primitives.

High-Value Rules

• Require authoritative policy, threat/lifetime, platform support, and qualified review before selecting algorithms, modes, parameters, or cryptoperiods.
• Select approved libraries/providers and record algorithm, parameter, purpose, format versions, authentication, and plaintext-release conditions.
• Record construction-specific nonce/IV policy: per-key domain, allocation, concurrency, restart, exhaustion, retention, and proof where uniqueness is required, or documented reuse and misuse-resistance bounds for approved constructions.
• Define AAD, data/wrapping-key hierarchy, identities, permissions, envelope metadata, and trust boundaries with canonical mismatch rejection.
• Separate generation, storage, cryptographic operations, administration, recovery, and audit authority.
• Define rotation and recovery through encrypt/decrypt sets, version routing, rollout, rollback, adoption, rewrap/re-encryption, retirement, provenance, and restore evidence.
• Bound compromise response across affected material, containment, revocation, replacement, recovery, re-protection, and preserved evidence.
• Gate destruction and deprecation on dependency, decryptability, recovery, algorithm, key, ciphertext, library, protocol, and consumer inventories.

Anti-Patterns

• Nonce handling violates the selected construction's uniqueness, reuse, or misuse-resistance contract.
• An unauthenticated mode permits undetected modification.
• Wrong AAD or context accepts data across boundaries.
• Key and data versions mismatch.
• Rotation removes the only decrypt path.
• Recovery material is inaccessible when required.
• A revoked key remains usable or retained unexpectedly.
• Destruction causes irreversible data loss.
• Algorithm deprecation leaves an unknown consumer.

Execution Checklist

• Test valid decrypt and altered ciphertext, tag, AAD, nonce, key identity, and version.
• Fault the applicable nonce allocation or reuse policy and rotation across concurrency, restart, rollback, and mixed versions.
• Rehearse recovery, compromise, revocation, destruction safeguards, re-protection, and deprecation migration.

Stop Conditions

• Stop without authoritative policy or qualified cryptographic review.
• Stop on an unproved applicable nonce policy, including uniqueness where required, unsupported primitives, unknown decrypt inventory, unsafe recovery, or destruction authority.
• Stop compliance claims and provider guarantees not established by their owners.

Output Contract

• cryptographic lifecycle decision with policy, construction, applicable nonce policy, identity, envelope, rotation, recovery, compromise, destruction, agility, evidence limits, and owners

Targeted References