Manage System Accounts

This guide explains what a system account is, how it varies from a user account, and how to manage a system account using the Konnect Identity API.

A system account is a service account in Konnect. Because system accounts are not associated with an email address and a user, they can be used for automation and integrations.

System accounts offer the following benefits over regular user accounts:

System accounts are not associated with an email address. This allows you to use the account as part of an automation or integration that isn’t associated with any person’s identity.
When you use a user account as part of an automation or integration and that user leaves the company, automation and integrations break. If you use a system account instead, the automation and integrations wouldn’t break.
System accounts don’t have sign-in credentials and therefore can’t access the Konnect UI. These accounts are intended to be used with APIs and CLIs.

The system account can use a Konnect personal access token (PAT) the same way a regular Konnect user can. In addition, the system account can be assigned roles directly or inherit the roles of a team. As such, a PAT created by a system account inherits the roles assigned to the system account.

Managed system accounts

Managed system accounts are system accounts whose life cycle is managed by Konnect instead of the user. The konnect_managed: true flag in the API denotes this type of system account.

Mesh Manager automatically creates a managed system account that is only used to issue a token during the zone creation process. This managed system account can’t be edited or deleted manually. Instead, it is deleted automatically by Konnect when the zone is deleted.

Manage a system account via the UI

You can create and manage system accounts in your Konnect organization through the Organization > System Accounts page.

From the System Accounts page, you can:

Create and manage system accounts.
Create and manage system account access tokens.
Assign roles to a system account.
Manage team memberships for a system account.

Manage a system account via the API

Create a system account

Create a system account by sending a POST request containing the name of your system account in the response body:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://global.api.konghq.com/v2/system-accounts
  --data '{
  "name": "Example System Account"}'

You will receive a 201 response code, and a response body containing information about your system account:

{
  "id": "497f6eca-6276-4993-bfeb-53cbbbba6f08",
  "name": "Example System Account",
  "created_at": "2019-08-24T14:15:22Z",
  "updated_at": "2019-08-24T14:15:22Z"
}

Generate a system account access token

The system account access token can be used for authenticating API and CLI requests.

Create a system account token by sending a POST request containing the accountId of the system account:

curl --request POST \
  --url 'https://global.api.konghq.com/v3/system-accounts/<account-id>/access-tokens'
  --header 'Authorization: Bearer <personal-access-token> \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{"name":"Sample Access Token","expires_at":"2025-05-07T14:44:48.645Z"}'

You will receive a 201 response code, and a response body containing the access token for the system account:

{
  "id": "80f0685e-c103-488b-a4de-4515e2a0d3e0",
  "name": "Sample Access Token",
  "created_at": "2025-01-12:15:54Z",
  "expires_at": "2025-05-07T14:44:48.645Z",
  "updated_at": "2025-01-13T21:04:22Z",
  "last_used_at": "2025-01-18T06:45:40Z",
  "token": "spat_12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890"
}

Copy and save the access token beginning with spat_.

Important: The access token is only displayed once, so make sure you save it securely.

Assign a role to a system account

You can assign a role to a system account so that the permissions associated with that role can be assigned to that account and their subsequent credentials.

Assign a role to a system account by sending a POST request containing the accountId and the role_name of the system account:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://global.api.konghq.com/v3/system-accounts/:497f6eca-6276-4993-bfeb-53cbbbba6f08/assigned-roles
  --data '{
  "role_name": "Viewer",
  "entity_id": "817d0422-45c9-4d88-8d64-45aef05c1ae7",
  "entity_type_name": "Control Plane Groups",
  "entity_region": "eu"
}'

You will receive a 201 response code and a response body containing the role that is now assigned to the system account:

{
  "id": "497f6eca-6276-4993-bfeb-53cbbbba6f08",
  "role_name": "Viewer",
  "entity_id": "817d0422-45c9-4d88-8d64-45aef05c1ae7",
  "entity_type_name": "Control Plane Groups",
  "entity_region": "eu"
}

Assign a system account to a team

You can assign a team to a system account so that the permissions associated with that team can be assigned to that account and their subsequent credentials.

Assign a team to a system account by sending a POST request containing the teamId of the team:

curl --request POST \
  --url https://global.api.konghq.com/v3/teams/:497f6eca-6276-4993-bfeb-53cbbbba6f08/system-accounts

You will receive a 201 response code and a response body stating that the system account was added to the team:

Created