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Bot users

What is a Bot User?​

A Bot User is a service account that owns a set of credentials - authtokens, API keys, and SSH keys - independently of a person. You can see and manage your bot users in the ngrok Dashboard.

A Bot User:​

  • Does not count as a standard user against your ngrok seat count
  • May be attached to services that consume ngrok platform resources and can trigger overages. These areas include metrics like bandwidth, total sessions and endpoints, auth tokens, API tokens, and more.
  • Has limited functionality
    • Cannot log into the ngrok Dashboard
    • Cannot be assigned or shared among multiple accounts
  • Has some great benefits
    • Credentials that are unique to a specific service or function instead of being connected to a person. A standard user may leave the account or want to rotate their credentials, and these actions should not impact production services running in ngrok.
    • Events are attributed to the Bot User and can help you better understand what a specific production service in ngrok is doing, even when there are multiple production services in the same account.
    • Can be deactivated to temporarily suspend all credentials associated with it
    • Can be deleted to immediately revoke and delete all credentials associated with it

When should I use a Bot User?​

A Bot User is the best suited to own the credentials of shipped products, devices, and integrations in production. The ideal flow is a credential you can associate with a specific task, keep active, and can rotate on a predictable schedule because it is unique to that integration, service, or function.

When should I not use a Bot User?​

A Bot User is very useful, but it is not a good subsitute for a standard ngrok User. When a developer is building with ngrok they may need to rotate credentials after adding them to a build environment or accidentally committing them to a repository. The developer needs to be able to use the ngrok dashboard to see endpoint status, make configuration changes, and manage their own credentials, which a Bot User cannot do.

What happens when I delete a Bot User?​

When you delete a Bot User, all credentials owned the user are immediately revoked and deleted. You cannot restore deleted credentials and if this happens you should create new credentials under a new or existing bot user.

Can I move my former employees credentials (API keys, authtokens, SSH keys) to a Bot User?​

Credentials are assigned an owner when they are created and the owner cannot be changed. Access the ngrok Dashboard to create a new bot user.

How come I didn't know ngrok had Bot Users?​

We are continuously improving the ngrok platform with new features! We launched Bot Users in early 2023 and are excited to see our customers adopt this functionality.