Adding task credentials

A task credential is a form of user authentication that is required by some services to perform operations in projects and spaces, for example to run certain tasks in a service or to enable the execution of long operations such as scheduled jobs without interruption.

In Cloud Pak for Data as a Service, IBM Cloud API keys are used as task credentials. You can either provide an existing IBM Cloud API key, or you can generate a new key. Only one task credential can be stored per user, per IBM Cloud account, and is stored securely in a vault.

You can generate and rotate API keys in Profile and settings > User API key.

Any user with an IBM Cloud account can create an API key. The API key can be seen as a type of user name and password, enabling access to resources in your IBM Cloud account and should never be shared.

If your service requires a task credential to perform an operation, you are prompted to provide it in the form of an existing or newly generated API key.

Note that service administrators are responsible for defining a strategy to revoke task credentials when these are no longer required.