headsso

Headsso is an identity and access management approach focused on headless and API-first systems, providing single sign-on across distributed applications. It emphasizes interoperability through standard protocols such as OAuth 2.0, OpenID Connect, and SAML 2.0 to enable a unified login experience.

In practice, Headsso relies on token-based authentication using JSON Web Tokens, with short-lived access tokens, refresh tokens, and PKCE for public clients. It also supports device authorization flows for non-browser clients and centralized session management.

The architecture typically includes an identity provider that authenticates users and issues tokens, a federation gateway for cross-domain trust, a user directory for identities and attributes, and client SDKs for web, mobile, and server-to-server apps. It supports multi-tenant deployments.

Core features include single sign-on across applications, multi-factor authentication, adaptive access, consent management, audit logging, and token revocation. It supports RBAC and ABAC, plus integration with external IdPs for social or enterprise identities.

Common use cases involve headless content management systems, API gateways, microservices architectures, and IoT platforms, where front-end experiences are decoupled from back-end services.

Security and governance emphasize TLS, key rotation, secure token storage, anomaly detection, rate limiting, and compliance considerations, given the central role of authentication.

Headsso is a term used in discussions of headless authentication and single sign-on. It is not an official standard, and implementations vary.