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Authorization Guide

After adding a Harmony instance, you need to authorize it to communicate with the Runbeam Cloud API.

Authorizing a Harmony Instance​

# Authorize a Harmony instance by label
runbeam harmony:authorize -l my-label

# Or by instance ID
runbeam harmony:authorize --id 1a2b3c4d

Authorization Flow​

The authorization process securely exchanges your user credentials for a machine-scoped token:

  1. CLI loads your user authentication token
  2. CLI calls the Runbeam Cloud API to authorize the gateway
  3. Runbeam Cloud issues a machine-scoped token (30-day expiry)
  4. CLI sends the token and encryption key to Harmony
  5. Harmony stores the machine token encrypted with the provided key
  6. Harmony can now make authenticated API calls to Runbeam Cloud

Security Model​

The authorization system is designed with multiple layers of security:

  • User tokens are short-lived (used only for authorization)
  • Machine tokens are encrypted at rest using age X25519 encryption
  • Each Harmony instance can have its own encryption key
  • Encryption keys are auto-generated or provided via RUNBEAM_ENCRYPTION_KEY environment variable
  • You can revoke a Harmony instance's access independently
  • Tokens can be renewed before expiry

Encryption Key Management​

The Runbeam SDK automatically manages encryption keys for secure token storage:

  • Keys are generated automatically on first use
  • Keys are stored at ~/.runbeam/<instance_id>/encryption.key or provided via RUNBEAM_ENCRYPTION_KEY environment variable
  • Keys are used transparently for encrypted filesystem token storage
  • No manual key management is required

Prerequisites​

Before authorizing a Harmony instance, ensure:

  1. You are logged in to Runbeam CLI:

    runbeam login

  2. Your Harmony instance has Runbeam integration enabled in config.toml:

    [runbeam]
    enabled = true

If the Harmony proxy returns 403 Forbidden during authorization, check that this configuration is present.

Advanced Options​

Automatic Configuration Upload​

After authorization, you can automatically upload the Harmony configuration to Runbeam Cloud:

runbeam harmony:authorize -l my-label --update

Non-Interactive Mode​

For CI/CD environments, use the -y flag to skip interactive prompts:

runbeam harmony:authorize -l my-label -y

When used without --update, configuration upload is skipped in non-interactive mode.

Troubleshooting​

403 Forbidden Error​

If you receive a 403 Forbidden error during authorization:

  1. Check that runbeam.enabled = true is set in your Harmony config.toml
  2. Reload the Harmony configuration: 
    runbeam harmony:reload -l my-label
  3. Try authorization again

Expired Token​

If your user token has expired:

  1. Log out and log back in: 
    runbeam logout
    runbeam login
  2. Verify your token: 
    runbeam verify
  3. Try authorization again

Machine Token Renewal​

Machine tokens expire after 30 days. To renew:

  1. Ensure you're logged in with a valid user token
  2. Run the authorization command again: 
    runbeam harmony:authorize -l my-label

The new machine token will replace the expired one.