JWT Federation — Federated JWT Trust Across Multiple Identity Providers

In this tutorial, you will learn about JWT Federation. We cover key concepts, practical examples, and best practices to help you master this topic.

JWT federation enables services to accept JWTs issued by external identity providers, creating a federated trust network where tokens issued by partner IdPs are accepted without shared secrets.

What You'll Learn

• Federated JWT trust establishment
• Multi-IdP JWKS resolution
• Claim mapping across providers
• Audience validation in federation
• Security considerations for federated trust

Why It Matters

Partners and customers need to call your APIs using their own identity systems. JWT federation lets them bring their own tokens. DodaTech's partner API accepts JWTs from 50+ customer IdPs, resolving each issuer's JWKS dynamically.

flowchart LR
    A["Partner IdP 1"] -->|"Issues JWT"| B["Partner Application"]
    C["Partner IdP 2"] -->|"Issues JWT"| B
    D["Customer IdP"] -->|"Issues JWT"| E["Customer Application"]

    B -->|"JWT + iss claim"| F["DodaTech API Gateway"]
    E -->|"JWT + iss claim"| F

    F --> G["Resolve JWKS by iss"]
    G --> H["Validate JWT signature"]
    H --> I["Map claims to local format"]
    I --> J["Authorize request"]

What's Next

Build federation with {{< ilink "JWT" "JKU and JWK" }} for key resolution, and secure with {{< ilink "JWT" "JWT Audience Validation" }}.