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Workload Identity in Multi System Environments (WIMSE)

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This page is about WIMSE, the IETF wimse working group and its Internet-Drafts for how software workloads, AI agents among them, identify and authenticate themselves to one another across platforms and trust domains [1][23]. It is not SPIFFE, the CNCF project that the charter lists under "Dependencies and Liaisons" and whose identifier the architecture draft gives as a conforming example [1][6]; see SPIFFE. It is not Web Bot Auth, the separate IETF webbotauth working group for automated clients that authenticate themselves to websites [29]; see Web Bot Auth. Its AI-agent document, AIMS, is a WIMSE working-group draft that applies WIMSE and OAuth 2.0 rather than a new agent protocol [22][23]; for it see WIMSE AI Identity Management System (AIMS). For the RFC that one WIMSE draft profiles, see HTTP Message Signatures.

Overview

WIMSE is the IETF working group for workload identity, which its charter scopes this way: "This working group will focus on the unique identity and access management aspects of workloads at runtime and their execution context, particularly focusing on the propagation, representation, and processing of workload identities." [1]. The charter says existing pieces had not been joined up: "These technologies (specifically: OAuth, JWT, and SPIFFE) have been combined in a variety of ways in practice, but the solutions have existed in relative isolation." [1], and it limits the protocol work to HTTP: "the WG will focus on only specific REST-based technologies using HTTP." [1]. The drafts give each workload a URI identifier and a signed Workload Identity Token bound to a key, which the workload proves it holds with a Workload Proof Token, an RFC 9421 HTTP signature or mutual TLS [17][8][10][13][15]. For AI agents, the working-group draft AIMS says "An agent participating in this framework MUST be assigned exactly one WIMSE identifier, which MAY be a SPIFFE ID." [23].

Who uses it

No production deployment that issues or accepts WIMSE Workload Identity Tokens was found (checked 2026-10-28). The implementations found are labelled alpha, in progress, proof-of-concept or pre-alpha by their own authors:

Who reads it

Dated statements from vendors whose software issues, verifies or plans for WIMSE credentials. No dated statement of WIMSE support from a large cloud provider was found (checked 2026-10-28).

Recent coverage

See also

References

  1. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identity in Multi System Environments (wimse), working group page and charter (charter-ietf-wimse-01), checked 2026-10-28: "Acronym wimse Area Applications and Real-Time Area (art) State Active Charter charter-ietf-wimse-01 Approved" "Chairs Justin Richer, Pieter Kasselman Area Director Charles Eckel" "This working group will focus on the unique identity and access management aspects of workloads at runtime and their execution context, particularly focusing on the propagation, representation, and processing of workload identities." "These technologies (specifically: OAuth, JWT, and SPIFFE) have been combined in a variety of ways in practice, but the solutions have existed in relative isolation." "The Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), particularly with regard to the SPIFFE/SPIRE project." "the WG will focus on only specific REST-based technologies using HTTP." "The Workload Identity in Multi-Service Environments (WIMSE) working group is chartered to address the challenges associated with implementing fine-grained, least privilege access control for workloads deployed across multiple service platforms, spanning both public and private clouds." "2026-07-31 Jul 2026 Submit informational document describing the WIMSE architecture to the IESG" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/wimse/about/
  2. IETF Datatracker, wimse working group history, checked 2026-10-28: "2024-03-07 Cindy Morgan Charter approved, group active" "2023-09-28 Cindy Morgan Group created in state BOF" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/wimse/history/
  3. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identity in Multi System Environments (wimse) working group documents list, checked 2026-10-28: "Workload Identity in Multi System Environments (wimse)" "Active Internet-Drafts" "Related Internet-Drafts and RFCs" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/wimse/documents/
  4. IETF Datatracker API, documents of type RFC for the wimse group (total_count 0), checked 2026-10-28: ""total_count": 0" ""objects": []" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/?group__acronym=wimse&type=rfc&format=json
  5. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identity in a Multi System Environment (WIMSE) Architecture draft-ietf-wimse-arch, checked 2026-10-28: "Active Internet-Draft" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-arch/
  6. J. Salowey (Palo Alto Networks), Y. Rosomakho (Zscaler), H. Tschofenig (UniBw M.), Workload Identity in a Multi System Environment (WIMSE) Architecture, draft-ietf-wimse-arch-08, 6 July 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document discusses an architecture for designing and standardizing protocols and payloads for conveying workload identity and security context information." "An example of an identifier format that conforms to this definition is [SPIFFE-ID]." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-arch-08.txt
  7. IETF Datatracker, WIMSE Workload Credentials draft-ietf-wimse-workload-creds, checked 2026-10-28: "WIMSE Workload Credentials draft-ietf-wimse-workload-creds-02" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-workload-creds/
  8. B. Campbell (Ping Identity), J. Salowey (CyberArk), A. Schwenkschuster (Defakto Security), Y. Sheffer (Intuit), Y. Rosomakho (Zscaler), WIMSE Workload Credentials, draft-ietf-wimse-workload-creds-02, 2 July 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document defines the credentials that workloads use to represent their identity." "typ: the WIT is explicitly typed, as recommended in Section 3.11 of [RFC8725], using the wit+jwt media type." "The workload MUST prove possession of the corresponding private key when presenting the WIT to another party. As such, it MUST NOT be used as a bearer token and is not intended for use in the Authorization header." "ABNF [RFC5234] for the value of Workload-Identity-Token header field" — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-workload-creds-02.txt
  9. IETF Datatracker, WIMSE Workload Proof Token draft-ietf-wimse-wpt, checked 2026-10-28: "WIMSE Workload Proof Token draft-ietf-wimse-wpt-02" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-wpt/
  10. B. Campbell (Ping Identity), A. Schwenkschuster (Defakto Security), WIMSE Workload Proof Token, draft-ietf-wimse-wpt-02, 27 August 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document specifies the Workload Proof Token (WPT), a mechanism for workloads to prove possession of the private key associated with a Workload Identity Token (WIT). The WPT is a signed JWT that binds the workload's authentication to a specific HTTP request, providing application-layer proof of possession for workload-to-workload communication." "The WPT is sent in the Authorization header field (Section 11.6.2 of [RFC9110]) of the request, using the WPT authentication scheme defined by this document." "typ: the WPT is explicitly typed, as recommended in Section 3.11 of [RFC8725], using the application/wpt+jwt media type." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-wpt-02.txt
  11. IETF Datatracker, WIMSE Workload-to-Workload Authentication with HTTP Signatures draft-ietf-wimse-http-signature, checked 2026-10-28: "Intended RFC status" "Proposed Standard" "Submitted to IESG for Publication" "Publication Requested" "2026-10-28" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-http-signature/
  12. IETF Datatracker, WIMSE Workload-to-Workload Authentication with HTTP Signatures draft-ietf-wimse-http-signature history (entries dated 2026-10-28), checked 2026-10-28: "IESG state changed to Publication Requested from I-D Exists" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-http-signature/history/
  13. J. Salowey (Palo Alto Networks), Y. Sheffer (Independent), WIMSE Workload-to-Workload Authentication with HTTP Signatures, draft-ietf-wimse-http-signature-08, 20 October 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document defines one of the mechanisms to provide workload authentication, using HTTP Signatures." "We define a profile of the HTTP Signatures protocol [RFC9421] to protect the service traffic." "The first alternative [I-D.ietf-wimse-wpt] is inspired by the OAuth DPoP specification [RFC9449]. The second is based on the HTTP Message Signatures RFC [RFC9421], and it is defined in this document." "tag - the value for implementations of this specification is wimse-workload-to-workload" — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-http-signature-08.txt
  14. IETF Datatracker, Workload Authentication Using Mutual TLS draft-ietf-wimse-mutual-tls, checked 2026-10-28: "Workload Authentication Using Mutual TLS draft-ietf-wimse-mutual-tls-03" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-mutual-tls/
  15. J. Salowey (Palo Alto Networks), Y. Rosomakho (Zscaler), Workload Authentication Using Mutual TLS, draft-ietf-wimse-mutual-tls-03, 24 October 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document profiles workload authentication based on X.509 Workload Identity Certificates using mutual TLS (mTLS)." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-mutual-tls-03.txt
  16. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identifier draft-ietf-wimse-identifier, checked 2026-10-28: "Active Internet-Draft" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-identifier/
  17. Y. Rosomakho (Zscaler), J. Salowey (Palo Alto Networks), Workload Identifier, draft-ietf-wimse-identifier-04, 23 October 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "A Workload Identifier is a URI that uniquely identifies a workload within the context of a specific trust domain." "The URI format allows different schemes (e.g., spiffe as defined in [SPIFFE-ID], wimse defined in Section 4.4) depending on deployment requirements." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-identifier-04.txt
  18. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identity Practices draft-ietf-wimse-workload-identity-practices, checked 2026-10-28: "AD Evaluation::AD Followup" "Informational" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-workload-identity-practices/
  19. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identity Practices draft-ietf-wimse-workload-identity-practices history (submitted to the IESG 2026-06-30), checked 2026-10-28: "IETF WG state changed to Submitted to IESG for Publication" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-workload-identity-practices/history/
  20. A. Schwenkschuster (Defakto Security), Y. Rosomakho (Zscaler), Workload Identity Practices, draft-ietf-wimse-workload-identity-practices-07, 22 September 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "It does not take into account the standards work in progress for the WIMSE architecture and associated protocols." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-workload-identity-practices-07.txt
  21. IETF Datatracker, Workload to Workload Authentication draft-ietf-wimse-s2s-protocol (replaced), checked 2026-10-28: "Replaced by" "draft-ietf-wimse-workload-creds" "Dead WG Document" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-s2s-protocol/
  22. IETF Datatracker, AI Identity Management System draft-ietf-wimse-aims, checked 2026-10-28: "Replaces" "draft-klrc-aiagent-auth" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-wimse-aims/
  23. P. Kasselman (Defakto Security), J. Lombardo (AWS), Y. Rosomakho (Zscaler), B. Campbell (Ping Identity), N. Steele (OpenAI), A. Parecki (Okta), AI Identity Management System, draft-ietf-wimse-aims-00, 15 September 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document proposes best practices for authentication and authorization of AI agent interactions." "Rather than defining new protocols, this document describes how existing and widely deployed standards can be applied or extended to establish agent authentication and authorization." "The Secure Production Identity Framework for Everyone ([SPIFFE]) identifier is a widely deployed and operationally mature instance of the WIMSE identifier model [WIMSE-ID]." "An agent participating in this framework MUST be assigned exactly one WIMSE identifier, which MAY be a SPIFFE ID." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-wimse-aims-00.txt
  24. IETF Datatracker, AI Agent Authentication and Authorization draft-klrc-aiagent-auth (replaced by draft-ietf-wimse-aims), checked 2026-10-28: "Replaced Internet-Draft" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-klrc-aiagent-auth/
  25. IETF Datatracker, AI Agent Authentication and Authorization draft-klrc-aiagent-auth history (adoption entry dated 2026-09-09), checked 2026-10-28: "IETF WG state changed to Adopted by a WG" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-klrc-aiagent-auth/history/
  26. IETF Datatracker, WIMSE Applicability for AI Agents draft-ni-wimse-ai-agent-identity, checked 2026-10-28: "This I-D is not endorsed by the IETF and has no formal standing in the IETF standards process" "Active Internet-Draft (individual)" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ni-wimse-ai-agent-identity/
  27. Y. Ni, C. P. Liu (Huawei), M. Richardson (Sandelman Software Works), B. Wang (CESI), WIMSE Applicability for AI Agents, draft-ni-wimse-ai-agent-identity-04, 27 October 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "This document discusses WIMSE applicability to Agentic AI, so as to establish independent identities and credential management mechanisms for AI agents." — https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ni-wimse-ai-agent-identity-04.txt
  28. IETF Datatracker, Workload Identity in a Multi System Environment (WIMSE) Architecture draft-salowey-wimse-arch (replaced), checked 2026-10-28: "Replaced Internet-Draft" — https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-salowey-wimse-arch/
  29. IETF Datatracker, Web Bot Auth (webbotauth) working group page and charter, checked 2026-10-28: "Automated clients (colloquially, 'bots') are increasingly used on the Web." — https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/webbotauth/about/
  30. SPIFFE, WIT-SVID specification, checked 2026-10-28: "The Workload Identity Token (WIT) is a token format specified by the IETF WIMSE working group in the WIMSE Workload Credentials document." "As the WIT-SVID is a sub-profiling of the WIMSE WIT, all WIT-SVIDs are WIMSE WITs and implementations designed to consume WIMSE WITs will be compatible with WIT-SVIDs." — https://spiffe.io/docs/latest/spiffe-specs/wit-svid/
  31. SPIFFE, SPIFFE Workload API specification, checked 2026-10-28: "The WIT-SVID Profile is optional and MAY be supported by SPIFFE implementations." — https://spiffe.io/docs/latest/spiffe-specs/spiffe_workload_api/
  32. SPIRE, CHANGELOG.md on main (1.14.0, 2025-12-11; 1.15.0, 2026-05-19; 1.15.3, 2026-08-21), checked 2026-10-28: "Dummy implementations for the WIT-SVID profile (#6399)" "iss claim support for WIT-SVIDs (#6857)" "Incremental WIT-SVID work, including support for building WIT-SVIDs in the svid.v1 API client and marshalling support for WIT-SVID keys (#7132, #7134)" — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spiffe/spire/main/CHANGELOG.md
  33. spiffe/spire issue #6326, WIT-SVID support in SPIRE, opened 2025-09-18, open (text checked at the GitHub API copy), checked 2026-10-28: "SPIFFE sig-spec is actively working on bringing Workload Identity Token support into SPIFFE." — https://github.com/spiffe/spire/issues/6326
  34. Solo.io, Workload identity tokens (WIMSE), Solo Enterprise for agentgateway documentation, version 2026.10.1, checked 2026-10-28: "Use WIMSE Workload Identity Tokens with agentgateway to authenticate service-to-service traffic when agentgateway is deployed as a waypoint proxy in an ambient mesh." "WIMSE/WIT support is in the alpha state. Alpha features are likely to change, are not fully tested, and are not supported for production." — https://docs.solo.io/agentgateway/kubernetes/latest/documentation/security/wimse/
  35. Solo.io, What Is Agent Identity, blog, 2026-06-23, checked 2026-10-28: "SPIFFE/WIMSE is a form of workload identity and is a natural fit." — https://www.solo.io/blog/what-is-agent-identity-human-workload-a-new-layer
  36. Cofide, Solving the middlebox dilemma with WIMSE and HTTP Message Signatures, 20 October 2025, checked 2026-10-28: "The team at Cofide have put together a proof-of-concept implementation of the WIMSE application-level authentication with HTTP Message Signatures methodology" "This is an early implementation of an emerging draft standard that remains in active development, and should be considered a demonstrator system." — https://www.cofide.io/resources/solving-the-middlebox-dilemma-with-wimse-and-http-message-signatures
  37. GitHub, cofide/wimse-s2s-httpsig-poc repository metadata (API): created 2024-12-13; Apache-2.0, checked 2026-10-28: ""created_at": "2024-12-13T10:37:14Z"" ""spdx_id": "Apache-2.0"" — https://github.com/cofide/wimse-s2s-httpsig-poc
  38. kanywst, wimsey README on main (text checked at the raw.githubusercontent.com copy), checked 2026-10-28: "Pre-alpha. The specs are Internet-Drafts (no RFC yet) and wimsey pins specific draft revisions in SPEC-MAP.md. Not production-ready." — https://github.com/kanywst/wimsey
  39. GitHub, kanywst/wimsey repository metadata (API): created 2026-06-29; owner type User; Apache-2.0, checked 2026-10-28: ""created_at": "2026-06-29T14:03:35Z"" ""type": "User"" ""spdx_id": "Apache-2.0"" — https://api.github.com/repos/kanywst/wimsey
  40. LLM4Agents, Agents are workloads: auditing WIMSE, WIT-SVID and the AIMS stack, 2026-08-23, checked 2026-10-28: "What AIMS is not — the draft invents no protocol, defines no wire format, and its IANA section reads "This document has no IANA actions."" — https://llm4agents.com/blog/wimse-spiffe-agent-workload-identity-audit
  41. NHI Governance, IETF WIMSE posts AI Identity Management System draft, 15 September 2026, checked 2026-10-28: "On 15 September 2026 the IETF Workload Identity in Multi-System Environments (WIMSE) working group posted a working group draft, draft-ietf-wimse-aims-00, titled AI Identity Management System." "It does not mean a standard exists." — https://nhigovernance.com/news/2026/ietf-wimse-posts-ai-identity-draft.html
  42. Know Your Agent (kya.fi), WIMSE draft: an agent's identifier should not carry its roles and entitlements, 2026-10-18, checked 2026-10-28: "The document, draft-heigh-wimse-workload-identity-metadata-00, is an individual Internet-Draft with Standards Track intended status, authored by Shlomo Heigh and Joseph Salowey (Palo Alto Networks) and Yaroslav Rosomakho (Zscaler)." — https://kya.fi/news-2026-10-16-wimse-workload-identity-metadata/

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