Security & mTLS identity

The agent is designed so that adding it to a server reduces your attack surface rather than adding to it.

A cryptographic identity per agent

Enrollment doesn’t hand the agent a shared secret. Instead:

• The agent generates a private key locally — it never leaves the host.
• It sends only a certificate signing request. Demerzel returns a certificate whose identity (demerzel://tenant/agent) is assigned by the server, not chosen by the agent.
• From then on the agent authenticates with that certificate (mTLS). The enrollment token is single-use and burned.

No inbound surface

The agent is outbound-only. It opens HTTPS connections to Demerzel and listens on nothing. There is no port to firewall, no daemon to exploit for remote access, and no command channel back to your servers.

Least privilege

Run the agent as an unprivileged system user that owns only its config directory (see Run the agent as a service). Its stored key and certificate are readable only by that user.

Evidence integrity

Everything the agent reports is recorded as immutable, append-only evidence on the server. Facts are never overwritten, so history is replayable and tampering is detectable.