Skip to main content
[AVAILABLE] for everything below, this is what actually runs today. Cloud/KMS/multi-instance/HA deployment is [ROADMAP], see Roadmap.

​
Goal

Stand up a real deployment with the storage backend you actually want, and understand exactly which keys the server needs, where they live, and what each one is for.

​
Prerequisites

  • Read Gateway attestation, this guide’s key management section assumes you know the gateway keypair is separate from the authorization key and why.

​
Steps

​
1. Choose a storage provider

// packages/storage/src/StorageFactory.ts
switch (configuration.provider) {
  case "memory":   return new MemoryStorageProvider();
  case "supabase": return new SupabaseStorageProvider();
  case "postgres": throw new Error("Postgres storage provider not implemented.");
  case "sqlite":   throw new Error("SQLite storage provider not implemented.");
}
Only memory and supabase have a real class behind them, postgres and sqlite are declared in the type union and throw immediately at startup, by design, fails closed rather than silently falling back to something else. 
PARMANA_STORAGE=memory     # in-process, non-persistent, no external dependency
# or
PARMANA_STORAGE=supabase   # this repo's committed .env default
PARMANA_STORAGE is the only variable read for this. An older DATABASE_PROVIDER variable existed briefly as a second, disconnected path to the same setting and is now retired: if it’s present in the environment, config loading fails at startup naming PARMANA_STORAGE as the replacement, rather than silently ignoring it.

​
2. Generate both required keypairs

Two, deliberately separate: 
node_modules/.bin/tsx scripts/generate-keypair.ts --algorithm ed25519 --key-id default
npm run generate:gateway-keys
Both write into PARMANA_KEY_DIR (defaults to ./keys). default.*.pem signs and verifies execution authorizations. gateway.*.pem signs gateway attestations. They protect different things and are never the same key, mixing them up is not just a style choice, assertKeyType fails closed if you sign with the wrong one for a configured provider.

​
3. Generate a caller API key for every system that will call this API

npm run generate:api-key -- --caller-id orchestrator-1
Prints a raw key once, and the hash to add to PARMANA_API_KEYS. The raw key is never written to disk by the script and cannot be recovered afterward, hand it to the calling system now. Repeat once per caller (your AI orchestration service, an internal dashboard, anything else that will call this API), and repeat again per caller whenever you rotate a key, see Rotating a caller’s key below.

​
4. Set the full environment checklist

PARMANA_STORAGE=memory                        # or: supabase
PARMANA_POLICY_DIR=/absolute/path/to/policies
PARMANA_KEY_DIR=/absolute/path/to/keys
PARMANA_GATEWAY_KEY_ID=gateway                 # optional, defaults to "gateway"
VENDOR_PAYMENT_TOKEN=...                       # credential for the one wired connector
PRIMARY_SIGNATURE_PROVIDER=ed25519             # or: dilithium3, needs Node >= 24
HASH_PROVIDER=sha256
PARMANA_API_KEYS=[{"callerId":"orchestrator-1","keyHash":"..."}]  # from step 3, one entry per key
PARMANA_API_KEYS is a JSON array. Multiple entries may share the same callerId, that is how rotation works, see below. The server refuses to start with this unset or empty, unless PARMANA_AUTH_DISABLED=true is set explicitly for local development, see Caller authentication.

​
5. Run it

npm run dev

​
Verify

Confirm the server actually started and is enforcing what you expect: 
curl http://localhost:3000/health
# {"status":"UP"}
If PARMANA_KEY_DIR is missing gateway.private.pem, the server refuses to start with a message naming the exact missing path, it does not start in a degraded, gateway-less mode, there is no such mode, see The gateway.

​
What PARMANA_GATEWAY_KEY_ID is for

Rotating the gateway’s key without touching default.*.pem or restarting with a completely new key directory: generate a second gateway keypair under a different ID (for example gateway-v2), verify it works, then flip PARMANA_GATEWAY_KEY_ID=gateway-v2 and restart. The old gateway.*.pem files can stay in place until you’re confident in the rotation, they simply won’t be read.

​
Caller authentication

Every route except GET /health requires a caller credential: a bearer key generated in step 3, sent as Authorization: Bearer <key>. Only a SHA-256 hash of each key is ever held by the server, comparisons run in constant time against that hash, and the raw key is never logged or written to disk anywhere in this codebase. This is only safe over TLS. A bearer key sent over plaintext HTTP is readable by anything that can observe the connection. Terminate TLS in front of this server (a reverse proxy, load balancer, or service mesh sidecar in your own infrastructure, since Parmana does not run a hosted service for you), and never expose the API on plaintext HTTP outside localhost. This is not a suggestion, it is the entire security value of the bearer-key scheme. Caller authentication is a distinct layer from everything else Parmana does. It runs first, before a Business Transaction is even constructed, and answers only “should this HTTP request be entertained at all.” It is independent of, and cannot substitute for, policy evaluation (a well-authenticated caller submitting a policy-rejected transaction is still rejected) or gateway attestation (which proves the gateway itself released a specific execution, not who called the API). Keeping these layers separate is deliberate, see How Parmana thinks.

​
Rotating a caller’s key

No downtime, no restart required beyond a config reload:
  1. Generate a new key for the same callerId: npm run generate:api-key -- --caller-id orchestrator-1.
  2. Add the new { callerId, keyHash } entry to PARMANA_API_KEYS alongside the old one. Both are active during migration.
  3. Hand the new raw key to the caller, confirm it works.
  4. Remove the old entry from PARMANA_API_KEYS. The old key is now revoked and stops authenticating immediately on the next config reload.

​
Upgrading beyond static keys

Caller authentication is implemented behind one interface, CallerAuthenticator (packages/api/src/auth/CallerAuthenticator.ts), with StaticKeyAuthenticator as the only implementation today. If your environment requires mutual TLS instead (common in banks that already run internal PKI for service-to-service traffic), that is a second class implementing the same interface, swapped in at one place (packages/api/src/bootstrap/createCallerAuthenticator.ts), not an architecture change: the middleware, the audit trail, and every route’s behavior stay exactly as documented above.

​
Disabling authentication (local development only)

PARMANA_AUTH_DISABLED=true
Skips caller authentication entirely and logs a loud warning at startup every time. This exists for local development and running the tutorials, and must never be set in a real deployment, doing so removes the only authentication this API has.

​
What this deployment does not give you

  • No KMS/HSM. Both private keys are files on disk, exactly the exposure that produced the incident noted on Security. KeyProviders declares aws-kms, azure-key-vault, gcp-kms, and hsm as config values with zero implementing classes, setting KEY_PROVIDER to one of these today does nothing useful.
  • Single process, single instance. No shared NonceStore across replicas, a fleet of these processes would each accept the same authorization once, not once fleet-wide (CLAIMS.md 3.2).
  • Only one connector registered. vendor-payment, a reference mock, see Add a connector with the Connector SDK for what adding another requires today.

​
Troubleshoot

  • Gateway private key not found. Run npm run generate:gateway-keys, or confirm PARMANA_KEY_DIR points at the directory you actually generated into.
  • Key directory does not exist. PARMANA_KEY_DIR (or the ./keys default) must exist before the server starts, FileKeyProvider doesn’t create it.
  • Config loading fails naming DATABASE_PROVIDER. Remove that variable from your environment, use PARMANA_STORAGE instead, see step 1.
  • Postgres storage provider not implemented. Expected, postgres and sqlite are declared but not built, use memory or supabase.
  • No caller authentication keys are configured. PARMANA_API_KEYS is unset or []. Generate a key (step 3) and add it, or set PARMANA_AUTH_DISABLED=true for local development only.
  • 401 authentication required on every request. Missing or malformed Authorization header, confirm you’re sending Authorization: Bearer <key> with the exact raw key from step 3, not the hash.

​
Next

Choose a signature provider

What PRIMARY_SIGNATURE_PROVIDER actually changes, and its real cost.

Roadmap

What’s designed but not built yet for production deployment: KMS, HA, network enforcement.