docs(keycloak): record the URL-reconciliation decisions
Records K1-K9: extend-vs-sibling and why, the generated+gated desired state, verbatim token pass-through, per-pass fail-closed, order-insensitivity, unmanaged-means-untouched, public clients' URLs managed, one alert pair not two, and the mutation harness. Also records a process note: my first pass reported three false findings (reconciler absent from main, import not templated, BASE_DOMAIN dead) because I diffed against origin/main -- origin is dev's Gitea, stale at4809199, while the live remote is prod-gitea atfa4deac. All three were wrong. The rule for this repo is written down so the next agent does not repeat it: origin is not the source of truth. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <[email protected]>
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@@ -2331,3 +2331,95 @@ vpn-class egress dead until someone noticed.
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> gateway whose tunnel interface is dynamic requires an explicit re-resolution trigger on every
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> interface change. This is a standing operational requirement of the ADR-0015 design, not an
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> implementation detail.*
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## Keycloak client REDIRECT URIs reconcile too — the same one-shot, one field over (2026-09-12)
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Follow-up to the client-secret reconciler. That CronJob heals the one field the one-shot realm
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import got wrong in the 2026-09-06 outage. This adds the *other* field the same one-shot cannot
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carry: the environment-derived client URLs.
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**The trigger.** prod is moving from `prod.home.keithjackson.dev` to the apex `home.keithjackson.dev`.
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`BASE_DOMAIN` is live — the realm import carries **26** `${BASE_DOMAIN}` references and 39 files under
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`platform/` + `apps/` reference it — so flipping the knob re-renders every declared redirect URI in
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git. It reaches Keycloak's database **never**: the `KeycloakRealmImport` rests at
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`Done=True / Started=False` and does not re-run. Measured on prod's live CR:
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`https://grafana.prod.home.keithjackson.dev/login/generic_oauth`, i.e. substitution demonstrably
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happened at the *current* value and then froze. After the flip, every OIDC login fails with a
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`redirect_uri` mismatch while the CR still reads `Done=True` and nothing alerts. Identical shape to
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the literal-`(env:...)` placeholder outage: **declared correctly in git, not in effect, behind a
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green signal.**
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### Decisions
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| # | Decision | Why |
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|---|---|---|
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| K1 | **EXTEND** the existing reconciler with a second pass; do NOT add a sibling CronJob | Decisive reason: a URL write needs **no new endpoint**. It is the same minimal `PUT /admin/realms/<realm>/clients/<uuid>`, and the current URLs already come back in the allow-listed client lookup. So the hard allow-list that makes `/users`, `/groups`, `/roles`, `/authentication` unreachable is widened by *nothing* and is preserved rather than re-declared in a second copy. The ConfigMap also carries exactly one script key by L0 contract, so a sibling would have had to fork ~300 lines of safety-critical code the file header explicitly forbids forking. Blast radii were already identical (client representations only), so separating them bought nothing real. |
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| K2 | The desired state is **GENERATED** from the realm import (`ci/render-keycloak-client-urls.py`), gated by L0 `--check` | The pod has `automountServiceAccountToken: false` and cannot read the `KeycloakRealmImport` CR, so its desired state must be mounted. A hand-authored ConfigMap would be a second declaration of every public hostname, free to disagree with the import — the same shape as the bug. Generated + gated makes them provably identical. Same `render==golden` idiom as `catalog/render.py`. |
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| K3 | URL strings are copied **verbatim**, tokens included; the renderer never parses a hostname and never reads `cluster-vars` | `client-urls.yaml` therefore carries `https://grafana.${BASE_DOMAIN}/...` unchanged, and L0 asserts it is rendered by the **same** Flux Kustomization as the import. `postBuild.substituteFrom` is per-Kustomization, so a split would let one token resolve to two values and the realm would converge on a hostname the HTTPRoutes do not serve. There is exactly one place the domain is decided, and **no new substitution variable** was introduced. |
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| K4 | The two passes **fail closed independently** | If a malformed URL ConfigMap could abort the run, a hostname typo would stop client-*secret* repair — making credential healing depend on a file that has nothing to do with credentials, a strictly worse posture than before pass 2 existed. Each pass reads its own input, fails closed for its own fields, and the exit code is the OR. |
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| K5 | List fields compare **order-insensitively** (`sorted`, not `set`) | Keycloak does not preserve the authored order of `redirectUris`. An order-sensitive compare would rewrite every client on every run forever while reporting success. `sorted` keeps duplicates as drift. |
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| K6 | A field the desired state omits is **UNMANAGED**, never forced to empty | Only `redirectUris`/`webOrigins` are declared today. Reading absence as "must be empty" would wipe an operator-set `adminUrl`, or any field a future Keycloak version populates itself. |
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| K7 | Public clients' **URLs are managed** even though their secrets are not | `kubernetes` is PKCE-public and its localhost callbacks are what `kubectl` logins land on; a stale URI on any client widens what the realm will redirect to. |
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| K8 | **Extend** the existing `KeycloakClientSecretReconcilerFailing`/`…Stale` pair rather than adding a second | One CronJob ⇒ one Failing/Stale pair. A second pair keyed to the same `job_name` regex would fire twice for a single cause and train the operator to ignore both. The CronJob exports no metrics of its own, so there is no *new* series to alert on — inventing a rule would have meant inventing a signal. No new critical, nothing permanently firing. |
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| K9 | Commit a **mutation harness** and run it in L0 (~20s) | A passing selftest proves nothing if it cannot fail, and "reported success while the realm was broken" is the exact failure this component exists to end. `mutations.py` injects 12 plausible regressions into the *extracted* script and requires `--selftest` to catch each. Two **survived on the first run** — order-insensitivity and readback verification were untested — and the suite was strengthened until all 12 were killed. That is the harness earning its place, not decoration. |
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### Evidence
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- reconciler `--selftest`: **84 assertions** pass (up from 39). Covers the domain flip, a client
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*gaining* a URI, a client *losing* a stale one, a public client's URLs managed while its secret is
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not, an unmanaged field surviving untouched, per-pass fail-closed, order-insensitivity, and a
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server that accepts a `PUT` with 204 and does not apply it.
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- `mutations.py`: **12/12 injected regressions killed.**
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- L0 `keycloak-client-secret-reconciler`: **212 assertions.** Verified to FAIL when
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`client-urls.yaml` is hand-edited away from the realm import.
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- The renderer's own `--check` verified to FAIL and print a diff on a drifted redirect URI.
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**Verified against the LIVE prod realm, read-only** (`CLUSTER=prod ... --context k3s-prod`, admin API
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via port-forward, `--audit` mode which provably never writes):
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- prod's `KeycloakRealmImport` reads `Done=True / Started=False / HasErrors=False` — the one-shot
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state, confirmed.
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- Its `spec` carries the SUBSTITUTED value `https://grafana.prod.home.keithjackson.dev/...`, and all
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13 clients' stored URLs sit on `prod.home.keithjackson.dev`. Substitution demonstrably happens and
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then freezes.
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- Running the shipped script's `--audit` at prod's CURRENT `BASE_DOMAIN`: **all 13 clients report
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`urls ok (already correct, no write)`** and it emits `KEYCLOAK_CLIENT_URLS_AUDIT_OK`. The realm is
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converged today, so the reconciler would be a no-op right now — which is the correct baseline.
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- Re-running with the desired state rendered at the POST-FLIP apex value: **24 drifted fields across
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12 clients**, each naming the exact before/after, while `kubernetes` correctly reports `ok` (its
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localhost callbacks are not domain-derived, so it must not drift). That is the precise damage the
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apex flip will do to SSO, detected, with zero false positives.
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- The same run had pass 1 fail closed on an empty secrets dir while pass 2 completed normally —
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K4's independence, demonstrated live rather than only in the selftest.
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**K5 (order-insensitivity) turned out to be measured, not defensive.** The live realm stores
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`kubernetes`' 8 redirect URIs and `oauth2-proxy`' 2 in a DIFFERENT ORDER than git declares them —
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Keycloak genuinely reorders them. An order-sensitive comparison would therefore have rewritten those
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two clients on **every run, every 15 minutes, forever**, reporting success each time. Both report
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converged under `sorted()`.
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### Process note — I initially reported three false findings, from reading the wrong ref
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Worth recording because the mistake is cheap to repeat. My first pass concluded that the reconciler
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was absent from `main`, that the realm import was not templated, and that `BASE_DOMAIN` was a dead
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knob. **All three were wrong.** I had diffed against `origin/main`, and `origin` is *dev's* Gitea,
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stale at `4809199`; the live remote is `prod-gitea`, with `main` at `fa4deac` — 68 commits ahead. On
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the real `main` the reconciler is present (delivered file-level, not via a merge, so it is not an
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ancestor of a branch cut from the old ref), the import carries 26 `${BASE_DOMAIN}` references, and 39
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files reference the knob.
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Consequences avoided: the branch was rebased off the stale base before merging. As-is it was 221
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files / 20,328 deletions against `main` and would have reverted velero's R2 enablement, the VPN egress
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gateway and the arr config-PVC fix. Rebasing also picked up a reconciler fix that only exists on real
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`main` — `fsGroup: 65532` with the client-secrets volume at `defaultMode: 0440`, without which the
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container dies with `PermissionError` on every run; my older base had `0400` and no `fsGroup`.
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**Rule for future agents in this repo: `origin` is not the source of truth. Diff against
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`prod-gitea/main`, or local `main` after confirming it matches.**
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### Still open
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- `https://${BASE_DOMAIN}/runbooks/keycloak-client-secrets` is referenced by both alerts and still
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does not exist.
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- The apex flip itself is `migration/dns-apex-inversion`'s job. This change only guarantees the realm
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follows git once the knob moves; it does not move it.
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@@ -29,7 +29,8 @@ files pulled as remote kustomize bases (the kubevirt-stub pattern); Renovate mai
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| `keycloak-instance.yaml` (`Keycloak` CR, `${KEYCLOAK_REPLICAS}`) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `postgres-cluster.yaml` (CNPG `Cluster` on longhorn) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `keycloak-realm-import.yaml` (`KeycloakRealmImport`: realm/groups/clients/MFA) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `client-secret-reconciler.yaml` (CronJob: client secrets ← git, every 15m) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `client-secret-reconciler.yaml` (CronJob: client secrets **and** client URLs ← git, every 15m) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `client-urls.yaml` (**GENERATED** ConfigMap: the client-URL desired state) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `httproute.yaml` (keycloak.home.keithjackson.dev) | **platform-config** | config |
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| `servicemonitor.yaml` (Prometheus scrape) | **platform-config** | config |
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@@ -85,8 +86,8 @@ Three layers now cover it:
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| Layer | Where | What it does |
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|---|---|---|
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| **Prevent** | `conformance/tests/l0-static/keycloak-client-secret-reconciler` (runs on every merge, unconditionally, from `ci/l0.sh`) | Every placeholder is defined, reads `keycloak-realm-clients`, and names an **existing** key called `<clientId>-client-secret`; public clients declare no secret; and the Flux Kustomization applying the Secret is a real transitive `dependsOn` ancestor (`wait: true`) of the ones applying the import and the reconciler. A missing SOPS key is now unmergeable. |
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| **Heal** | `client-secret-reconciler.yaml` — CronJob, every 15m | Compares each client's **stored** secret with the mounted `keycloak-realm-clients` value and PUTs the **minimal** `{clientId, secret}` representation only where they differ. Skips correct clients, never logs a secret, holds a hard endpoint allow-list so users/groups/roles/flows are unreachable, and needs no Kubernetes API access (`automountServiceAccountToken: false`). |
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| **Detect** | `conformance/tests/l2-behavioral/keycloak-client-secrets-match-git` + alerts `KeycloakClientSecretReconcilerFailing` / `…Stale` | Runs the same script in read-only `--audit` mode against the live realm and fails on any mismatch or literal placeholder; the alerts make the reconciler's silence observable in prod. |
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| **Heal** | `client-secret-reconciler.yaml` — CronJob, every 15m, two passes | Compares each client's **stored** secret with the mounted `keycloak-realm-clients` value and PUTs the **minimal** `{clientId, secret}` representation only where they differ; a second, independent pass does the same for the client URLs against the generated `client-urls.yaml` (see below). Skips correct clients, never logs a secret, holds a hard endpoint allow-list so users/groups/roles/flows are unreachable, and needs no Kubernetes API access (`automountServiceAccountToken: false`). |
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| **Detect** | `conformance/tests/l2-behavioral/keycloak-client-secrets-match-git` + alerts `KeycloakClientSecretReconcilerFailing` / `…Stale` | Runs the same script in read-only `--audit` mode against the live realm and fails on any mismatch, literal placeholder **or drifted client URL**; the alerts make the reconciler's silence observable in prod. |
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The reconciler's own `--selftest` (run by the L0 gate, which extracts the script from the shipped
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ConfigMap) proves compare-then-write, **idempotence** (zero writes on a converged realm),
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@@ -99,10 +100,59 @@ kubectl -n keycloak create job --from=cronjob/keycloak-client-secret-reconciler
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kubectl -n keycloak logs -l app.kubernetes.io/name=keycloak-client-secret-reconciler --tail=-1
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```
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**What the reconciler does NOT fix:** anything other than client secrets. A NEW client, a changed
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redirect URI or a new protocol mapper still needs the realm import to actually re-run (it will not on
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its own) or a deliberate admin-API/`kcadm` change. `Done=True` is never evidence that a realm edit
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landed.
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## Client URLs: the same one-shot failure, one field over
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Moving an environment's `BASE_DOMAIN` re-renders every declared `redirectUris` / `webOrigins` /
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`rootUrl` / `baseUrl` / `adminUrl` in git — and reaches the realm **never**, because a completed
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import does not re-run. Measured on prod: stored redirect URIs still on the pre-migration hostname
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while git declared the new one. Every OIDC login then fails with a `redirect_uri` mismatch, the
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`KeycloakRealmImport` still reads `Done=True`, and nothing alerts.
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**Pass 2 of the same CronJob** closes it. It was made a second pass of the existing reconciler rather
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than a sibling CronJob for one decisive reason: **a URL write needs no new endpoint.** It is the same
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minimal `PUT /admin/realms/<realm>/clients/<uuid>`, and the current URLs already come back in the
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allow-listed client lookup — so the hard allow-list that makes `/users`, `/groups`, `/roles` and
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`/authentication` unreachable is widened by *nothing*, and is preserved rather than re-declared in a
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second copy. (The ConfigMap also carries exactly one script key by L0 contract, so a sibling would
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have had to fork ~300 lines of safety-critical code the header explicitly forbids forking.)
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**The desired state is generated, not authored.** `client-urls.yaml` is rendered from
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`keycloak-realm-import.yaml` by `ci/render-keycloak-client-urls.py`, and the L0 gate runs that
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renderer with `--check` on every merge, so the committed file cannot disagree with the import. URL
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strings are copied verbatim — a `${BASE_DOMAIN}` token passes through unchanged, and both files are
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rendered by the **same** Flux Kustomization, so both are substituted in one pass with one value. The
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renderer never parses a hostname and never reads `cluster-vars`: there is no second place the domain
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can be decided.
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```sh
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# regenerate after editing a client URL in the realm import (the gate will demand it)
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python3 ci/render-keycloak-client-urls.py --write
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```
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Properties, each proved by `--selftest` and each shown to be *falsifiable* by
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`conformance/tests/l0-static/keycloak-client-secret-reconciler/mutations.py`:
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* **Converged ⇒ zero writes.** List fields compare order-insensitively (`sorted`, not `set` —
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duplicates are still drift), because Keycloak does not preserve the authored order of
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`redirectUris`; an order-sensitive compare would rewrite every client forever while reporting
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success.
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* **Gaining and losing a URI both work.** The declared list is exact, so a URI removed from git is
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removed from the realm — a stale wildcard left behind quietly widens what the realm will redirect
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to.
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* **Undeclared ⇒ unmanaged.** A field the desired state omits is left exactly as it is. Absence never
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means "force to empty".
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* **Public clients' URLs *are* managed** (their secrets are not): `kubernetes` is PKCE-public and its
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localhost callbacks are what `kubectl` logins land on.
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* **The two passes are independent.** Each reads its own desired state and fails closed for its own
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fields only. A malformed URL ConfigMap cannot stop client-*secret* repair, and an unmounted Secret
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cannot stop URL repair.
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* URLs are logged in full (they are public hostnames, and the before/after is what makes a migration
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auditable); secrets are still never logged.
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**What the reconciler does NOT fix:** anything outside client secrets and those five URL fields. A
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NEW client, a new protocol mapper or a changed scope still needs the realm import to actually re-run
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(it will not on its own) or a deliberate admin-API/`kcadm` change. `Done=True` is never evidence that
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a realm edit landed.
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## Exceptions that keep native auth (do not force SSO) — ADR-0014
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