DEV Community: Caroline Y

10 Things You Can Build with Identity Lifecycle Management

Caroline Y — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 16:37:20 +0000

Editor's Note: We recently published this article on the OmniTrust blog, and I wanted to share it with the broader developer and open-source community here. I'd like to hear about additional use cases, new ideas, or projects being built with ILM.

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When developers discover a new open-source project, one of the first questions they ask is simple: “What can I actually build with this?”

Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM) is an open foundation for automating certificates, keys, secrets, and machine identities across modern cloud, hybrid, and enterprise environments. Rather than being just another certificate lifecycle management platform, ILM gives developers, platform engineers, security architects, and contributors the flexibility to solve real-world cryptographic challenges in their own environments. Whether you’re extending an existing integration, experimenting with new automation, or creating something entirely new, ILM provides the features, flexibility, and extensibility to help you build solutions faster. Here are ten ways to get started.

Build a Unified Inventory of Cryptographic Assets
Every trust automation project starts with visibility. Use Discovery, Inventory, and CBOM Lens to identify certificates, cryptographic keys, secrets, and other cryptographic assets across your environment. Together, they help you create a centralized inventory that improves governance, ownership, compliance, and operational awareness.

Automate Certificate Lifecycles
Replace repetitive manual work with automation. Build workflows for certificate requests, approvals, issuance, renewal, deployment, and expiration monitoring including notifications and ticketing or automation systems integration using the Core Platform, lifecycle services, policy framework, and supporting Documentation.

Extend Certificate Authority Integrations
Most companies already have PKI infrastructure. Instead of replacing it, extend it. ILM already includes connectors for technologies such as Microsoft ADCS and EJBCA NG. Start with the Microsoft ADCS Connector or EJBCA NG Connector, then adapt or extend them for your own certificate authority and operational requirements.

Integrate Vaults and Secrets Management
Certificates are only part of the trust lifecycle. Build on the HashiCorp Vault Connector or create integrations with your preferred vault technologies. Create one master vault and synchronize secrets to the others or create synchronization rules between sets of vaults. Bring certificates, cryptographic keys, and secrets together under a unified trust lifecycle while leveraging the vault solutions you already use.

Extend Existing Cryptography and HSM Providers
You don’t have to build everything yourself. Start with the Software Cryptography Provider and Interfaces framework, then extend support for your HSMs, software keystores, or organization-specific cryptographic services.

Automate Trust Across Kubernetes
Cloud-native applications require cloud-native trust. Deploy ILM using the Kubernetes Operator and Helm Charts, then automate certificate and trust operations across Kubernetes clusters, containers, and modern application platforms.

Prepare for Post-Quantum Cryptography
Post-quantum migration begins with understanding what you already have. Use Discovery, Inventory, and CBOM Lens to identify cryptographic assets, understand where cryptography is being used, and begin planning your migration strategy. Setup smooth migration between different certificate profiles or even certificate authorities without need of endpoints modification.

Build Your Own Connectors
Every organization has unique systems. Use Interfaces together with the Go SDK to build integrations for internal applications, cloud platforms, DevOps pipelines, ITSM systems, or security tools. Existing connectors provide excellent examples and a solid foundation for building your own integrations.

Create New Trust Automation Workflows
Trust automation goes far beyond certificates. Build workflows that enforce policy, orchestrate approvals, automate notifications, validate compliance, and integrate with external systems using projects such as the Scheduler, Webhook Notification Provider, and Email Notification Provider.

Build Something We Haven’t Thought Of Yet
This is where open source becomes truly exciting. The OmniTrust ILM GitHub Organization includes more than 50 repositories spanning platform services, connectors, SDKs, operators, APIs, documentation, and development tools. Use them as building blocks, extend them for your own environment, or create something entirely new. Some of ILM’s most valuable future capabilities won’t come from a product roadmap alone. They’ll come from developers solving real-world problems, sharing ideas, and contributing back to the community. Maybe the next one will come from you.

Ready to Build?
Everything you need to get started is available through the OmniTrust ILM Community—from downloading ILM and exploring the GitHub repositories to reading the documentation, following the Quick Start guides, joining Discord, and connecting with the community.

Download ILM. Explore the code. Build something. Share it with the community.

The future of trust automation will be built with the community.

Why We Open-Sourced Identity Lifecycle Management (ILM)

Caroline Y — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 20:34:10 +0000

Editor's Note: We recently published this article on the OmniTrust blog, and I wanted to share it with the broader developer and open-source community here on DEV.to. I'd love to hear your thoughts—what role do you think open source should play in the future of trust infrastructure?

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Over the years, I’ve had countless conversations with customers, partners, and security leaders about the future of trust infrastructure. Lately, one question comes up more than any other:

“Why did OmniTrust choose to open-source ILM?”

It’s a fair question. The answer goes beyond open source. It’s about what the future of trust infrastructure requires. During that time, I’ve watched trust infrastructure evolve from a back-office security function into critical operational infrastructure.

Today, trust infrastructure extends far beyond certificates. It spans cloud platforms, software supply chains, machine identities, cryptographic keys, secrets, digital signatures, containers, APIs, and increasingly, AI-driven systems. Every new application, service, workload, and device adds another layer of complexity. Organizations are preparing for post-quantum cryptography, adapting to shorter certificate lifetimes, and automating trust operations at a scale that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago.

As trust infrastructure becomes more interconnected, managing each component independently is no longer enough. Organizations need a unified approach to managing, integrating, governing, and automating trust infrastructure across the enterprise. That’s what ultimately led us to open-source ILM.

Why Open Source?

We chose to build ILM in the open because we believe that’s how trust infrastructure will evolve. Trust doesn’t exist in isolation. It spans certificate authorities, PKI platforms, vaults, HSMs, cloud providers, software supply chains, enterprise applications, and technologies that continue to emerge. No single organization can anticipate every integration, every deployment model, or every operational requirement.

Open source creates a foundation for continuous innovation. It enables organizations to extend capabilities, build new integrations, automate new workflows, and adapt as trust infrastructure continues to evolve. The result isn’t just better software. It’s a stronger, more connected trust ecosystem. That’s how we believe the future of trust infrastructure and trust automation will be built.

Why ILM Exists

When we started building ILM, we recognized that many organizations weren’t simply struggling to manage certificates. They were struggling to manage the entire lifecycle of cryptographic assets. Certificates, cryptographic keys, secrets, digital signatures, signing operations, cryptographic discovery, inventory, policy enforcement, and automation all influence the integrity of modern systems, yet they’re often managed through disconnected tools and separate operational processes.

ILM was designed to bring those capabilities together under a unified trust lifecycle model—helping organizations improve visibility, strengthen governance, and automate cryptographic workflows across their environments. We’ve shared more about the platform itself in previous blogs and product updates. The more important story is why we believe its future should be built in the open.

Building an Open Ecosystem

Open source and enterprise software each have an important role to play. Open source accelerates innovation by encouraging collaboration, transparency, and the exchange of ideas across the broader trust ecosystem. Enterprise solutions help organizations operationalize those innovations with the governance, resilience, scalability, and support required for production environments.

At OmniTrust, we don’t see these as competing approaches. We see them as complementary. Together, they help organizations adopt trust automation with confidence while continuing to move the industry forward.

Building the Future of Trust Automation

The pace of change isn’t slowing. Machine identities will continue to grow. AI will reshape how trust is established and maintained. Post-quantum cryptography will transform cryptographic operations. Automation will become essential across every modern enterprise. Those changes require more than technology. They require an open ecosystem where organizations can collaborate, innovate, and move trust automation forward together. That’s why ILM is built in the open.

Whether you’re modernizing PKI, preparing for post-quantum cryptography, extending trust automation, or building new integrations, we invite you to be part of the journey. Download ILM. Deploy it. Explore it. Build with it. Contribute to it. The future of trust automation will be built together.

Get Started with ILM

Visit the ILM Community to download the open-source edition, explore the documentation, connect with the community, and start building.

About OmniTrust ILM

OmniTrust ILM is an open-source Identity Lifecycle Management platform for certificates, machine identities, keys, secrets, and trust automation.

🌐 Learn more: https://www.omnitrust.com/ilm-community/
💻 GitHub: https://github.com/OmniTrustILM

Introducing the ILM Community: An Open Source Community for PKI, Machine Identities & Trust Automation

Caroline Y — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 07:00:00 +0000

This blog was originally published by OmniTrust to introduce the ILM Community and is being shared here for the DEV Community. I'd like to hear your thoughts and experiences on a few of these topics:

How are you managing certificate and machine identity lifecycles today?
What has been your biggest operational challenge?
What topics would you like to see covered in future articles?

If you're interested in open-source PKI, machine identities, and trust automation—or would like to learn more or get involved—visit the OmniTrust ILM Community.

I look forward to hearing your experiences.