StrongDM Zero Trust Infrastructure Access REST API
StrongDM zero trust infrastructure access REST API for enterprises to automate privileged access management for databases, servers, Kubernetes, and cloud infrastructure — enabling AI agents to manage access grants, provision resources, manage accounts, and integrate with identity providers through StrongDM's infrastructure access platform with full audit trail of all database queries and SSH/RDP commands. Enables AI agents to manage resource management for database, server, Kubernetes, and cloud resource registration and configuration automation, handle account management for user and service account provisioning and access automation, access grant management for just-in-time access grant creation and revocation automation, retrieve role management for RBAC role definition and assignment automation, manage workflow management for access request approval workflow automation, handle audit management for infrastructure access session and query audit trail retrieval automation, access policy management for access policy definition and enforcement automation, retrieve integration management for SSO, HR system, and ITSM integration configuration automation, manage secret management for credential vault and rotation integration automation, and integrate StrongDM with Okta, Azure AD, ServiceNow, and HRIS for zero trust infrastructure access automation.
Score Breakdown
⚙ Agent Friendliness
🔒 Security
Zero trust infrastructure access. SOC2, FedRAMP, HIPAA. HMAC-signed API key. US/EU. Infrastructure session and audit data.
⚡ Reliability
Best When
A security or DevOps team wanting AI agents to automate privileged infrastructure access management — just-in-time grants, access revocation, session auditing, and ITSM approval workflows — through StrongDM's zero trust access gateway.
Avoid When
ENTERPRISE LICENSE IS REQUIRED: StrongDM serves enterprises; automated open-developer assumption creates license_required; StrongDM requires enterprise agreement; automated must have StrongDM license. GATEWAY DEPLOYMENT IS REQUIRED: StrongDM requires gateway/relay deployment between users and infrastructure; automated direct-access assumption creates connectivity_gap for environments without StrongDM gateway deployed in infrastructure network; automated must deploy StrongDM gateway. IDENTITY PROVIDER INTEGRATION IS EXPECTED: StrongDM integrates with IdP (Okta, Azure AD) for user authentication; automated standalone-auth assumption creates missing_integration for implementations relying on StrongDM-native user management without IdP integration; automated should integrate with organizational IdP. RESOURCE CREDENTIALS ARE MANAGED BY STRONGDM: StrongDM manages credentials for protected resources; automated bring-your-own-credentials assumption creates access_denied for users expecting to use their own credentials for StrongDM-protected databases; automated must use StrongDM-issued access tokens.
Use Cases
- • Provisioning just-in-time database access for developers and granting time-limited credentials for access automation agents
- • Auditing all database queries and server sessions for compliance and security investigation automation agents
- • Managing access grants and revocations based on ITSM ticket approval for PAM workflow automation agents
- • Integrating infrastructure access with HRIS offboarding for automatic access revocation on employee departure agents
Not For
- • Password vault for individual end users (StrongDM is infrastructure access gateway, not personal password manager; 1Password and LastPass serve personal vaults)
- • Application-to-application secrets management (StrongDM is human/service infrastructure access; HashiCorp Vault serves app secrets injection)
- • Cloud IAM role management (StrongDM is a gateway layer; AWS IAM and Azure RBAC serve cloud IAM role management directly)
Interface
Authentication
StrongDM uses API key (access/secret key pair) for Infrastructure Access REST/gRPC API. REST + gRPC with JSON/protobuf. San Francisco, CA HQ. Founded 2015 by Elizabeth Zalman and Justin McCarthy. Raised $54M+. Products: StrongDM Platform (zero trust infrastructure access), StrongDM CLI, StrongDM SDKs. HMAC-signed API requests. 700+ enterprise customers. Industries: fintech, healthcare, SaaS, enterprise IT. Competes with CyberArk, Delinea, and Teleport for privileged infrastructure access management.
Pricing
San Francisco CA. $54M raised. 700+ customers. 14-day trial. Annual per-user subscription.
Agent Metadata
Known Gotchas
- ⚠ API KEY USES HMAC SIGNING: StrongDM API requests require HMAC-SHA256 signing using access key and secret key; automated simple-header assumption creates authentication_failure for requests using API key directly in header without HMAC signature; automated must implement HMAC-signed request generation
- ⚠ GRPC IS THE PRIMARY PROTOCOL: StrongDM's primary API is gRPC (not REST); automated REST-only assumption creates capability_gap for operations best served by StrongDM's gRPC API; automated should use SDKs which abstract the gRPC protocol
- ⚠ GRANTS HAVE TIME-TO-LIVE: StrongDM access grants can have TTL expiration; automated permanent-grant assumption creates expired_access for time-limited grants not renewed before expiry; automated must track grant TTL and implement renewal before expiry for continuous access
- ⚠ RESOURCE ENDPOINTS ARE GATEWAY-ROUTED: All connections to StrongDM-protected resources route through gateway; automated direct-connect assumption creates connection_refused for clients not routing through StrongDM gateway; automated must ensure client is configured to use StrongDM gateway endpoint
- ⚠ AUDIT LOGS ARE APPEND-ONLY: StrongDM query and session logs are immutable audit records; automated mutable-log assumption creates compliance_gap for designs expecting log modification; automated must query audit logs with time range filters for audit and compliance reporting
Alternatives
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Scores are editorial opinions as of 2026-03-07.