Auth with Keycloak

How Agent-Lab uses Keycloak

Keycloak manages authentication and authorization via OpenID Connect. When auth.enabled is true (see the Configuration reference):

• the FastAPI middleware validates bearer tokens against the realm's JWKS on every request, with the standard exclusions (/auth/*, /status/*, /docs, /openapi.json, /mcp, /static);
• the /auth router exposes login, renewal, profile and a Microsoft Entra ID exchange endpoint;
• the MCP server authenticates clients through an OAuth proxy backed by the same realm, publishing the standard .well-known metadata endpoints.

Configure a realm, client and service account

The steps below use the Keycloak Admin API. Set your admin credentials and endpoint first:

export ADMIN_USER=<admin_username>
export ADMIN_PASS=<admin_password>
export ADMIN_TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST "https://<auth_fqdn>/realms/master/protocol/openid-connect/token" \
    -d "username=${ADMIN_USER}&password=${ADMIN_PASS}&grant_type=password&client_id=admin-cli" | jq -r '.access_token')

Create a realm (replace <realm_name>):

curl -X POST https://<auth_fqdn>/admin/realms \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${ADMIN_TOKEN}" \
  -d '{"realm": "<realm_name>", "enabled": true}'

Create a client for Agent-Lab:

curl -X POST https://<auth_fqdn>/admin/realms/<realm_name>/clients \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${ADMIN_TOKEN}" \
  -d '{
    "clientId": "<client_name>",
    "enabled": true,
    "protocol": "openid-connect",
    "publicClient": false,
    "redirectUris": ["https://<agent_lab_fqdn>/*"],
    "standardFlowEnabled": true,
    "clientAuthenticatorType": "client-secret"
  }'

Obtain the client secret:

export CLIENT_ID=$(curl -X GET "https://<auth_fqdn>/admin/realms/<realm_name>/clients?clientId=<client_name>" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${ADMIN_TOKEN}" | jq -r '.[0].id')

export CLIENT_SECRET=$(curl -X GET "https://<auth_fqdn>/admin/realms/<realm_name>/clients/${CLIENT_ID}/client-secret" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${ADMIN_TOKEN}" | jq -r '.value')

These values map to the auth.* configuration keys (auth.url, auth.realm, auth.client_id, auth.client_secret) — store them in the Vault payload per the Configuration reference.

Create a service account user:

curl -X POST https://<auth_fqdn>/admin/realms/<realm_name>/users \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer ${ADMIN_TOKEN}" \
  -d '{
    "username": "<username>",
    "enabled": true,
    "email": "<username>@example.com",
    "credentials": [{"type": "password", "value": "<user_password>", "temporary": false}]
  }'

Fine-tune roles and mappers in the Keycloak UI if needed.

Issue and verify tokens

Get a user token (password grant — the same flow POST /auth/login performs on the app side):

export USER_TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST https://<auth_fqdn>/realms/<realm_name>/protocol/openid-connect/token \
  -d "grant_type=password" \
  -d "client_id=<client_name>" \
  -d "client_secret=${CLIENT_SECRET}" \
  -d "username=<username>" \
  -d "password=<user_password>" | jq -r '.access_token')

curl -s https://<agent_lab_fqdn>/agents/list -H "Authorization: Bearer $USER_TOKEN" | jq

Tokens renew via POST /auth/renew, and users authenticated in Microsoft Entra ID can be exchanged for app tokens via POST /auth/exchange (PKCE authorization-code flow, backed by the Entra ID credentials in the configuration).

Automated provisioning

The Terraform module terraform/12_agent-lab-auth-realm/ (part of the deployment guide) provisions the realm, client and service account for the reference deployment — use it in real environments instead of the manual steps.