Kubernetes Workload Attestor

The Kubernetes attestor identifies workloads by querying the Kubernetes API for the pod that owns the requesting process.

Configuration

Enable the Kubernetes attestor in the WorkloadAttestation section:

section: WorkloadAttestation
schema: v1
spec:
  kubernetes:
    enabled: true
    includeAnnotationPrefixes:
      - "example.com/"

Field	Default	Description
`kubernetes.enabled`	`true`	Enable or disable Kubernetes attestation
`kubernetes.includeAnnotationPrefixes`	`[]`	Annotation key prefixes to include as attributes. Empty means no annotations. Restart required to change.

Attributes

The following attributes are collected for workloads running in Kubernetes-based platforms (e.g. k8s) and can be used in path templates, JWT custom claims, and X.509 Subject customization. Some attributes are restricted to specific surfaces — see the Notes column.

Kubernetes Attribute	Path Template Variable	Notes
Pod Image Count	kubernetes.pod.image_count	Number of containers in the pod. E.g. `1`
Pod Init Image Count	kubernetes.pod.init_image_count	Number of init containers in the pod. E.g. `0`
Pod Name	kubernetes.pod.name
Namespace	kubernetes.pod.namespace
Pod UID	kubernetes.pod.uid
Pod Node Name	kubernetes.pod.node.name
Pod Owner	kubernetes.pod.owner	Owner of the pod, formatted as `Type:Name`. E.g. `ReplicaSet:my-replicaset-5cfd45f6c9`. See note below.
Pod Owner UID	kubernetes.pod.owner_uid	UID of the pod's owner. E.g. `316ea285-b878-4d20-a9fe-2e1c79b0f083`. See note below.
Service Account	kubernetes.pod.service_account
Pod Container Image Name	kubernetes.pod.container.<container_name>.image.name	One entry per container in the pod. Not available in path templates.
Pod Container Image ID	kubernetes.pod.container.<container_name>.image.id	One entry per container in the pod. Not available in path templates.
Pod Init Container Image Name	kubernetes.pod.init_container.<container_name>.image.name	One entry per init container in the pod. Not available in path templates.
Pod Init Container Image ID	kubernetes.pod.init_container.<container_name>.image.id	One entry per init container in the pod. Not available in path templates.
Pod Label	kubernetes.pod.label[<label_key>]	One entry per label on the pod
Pod Annotation	kubernetes.pod.annotation[<annotation_key>]	One entry per allowlisted annotation on the pod
Container Name	kubernetes.container.name	Disabled by default. See below.
Container Image Name	kubernetes.container.image.name	Disabled by default. See below.
Container Image ID	kubernetes.container.image.id	Disabled by default. See below.

Pod owner attributes

kubernetes.pod.owner and kubernetes.pod.owner_uid are derived from the pod's OwnerReferences. If there are multiple entries, the last owner in OwnerReferences is used.

Label and annotation keys with special characters

Pod label and pod annotation keys containing forward slashes (/) or dashes (-) require Trust Domain Server version 0.28.0 or newer. On earlier versions, configuration using these keys will fail synchronization, and the server will remain on its previous configuration.

Annotation allowlist

Pod annotations are emitted only for keys matching an allowlisted prefix. Configure prefixes via kubernetes.includeAnnotationPrefixes in the WorkloadAttestation managed configuration section. For example, to expose the annotation example.com/my-annotation:

section: WorkloadAttestation
schema: v1
spec:
  kubernetes:
    includeAnnotationPrefixes:
      - "example.com/"

Enabling container attributes

Container attributes must be enabled by setting includeContainerAttributes: true in the relevant platform block (e.g. k8s, istio) of the spirl-system Helm values.

Workload container vs. pod container attributes

The kubernetes.container.* attributes describe the container running the attested workload. To access attributes of other containers in the same pod, use the kubernetes.pod.container.<container_name>.* attributes instead.

Configuration​

Attributes​

Configuration

Attributes