System Overview

jitsudo follows the same architectural principles as Kubernetes: a versioned API server (control plane) that all clients interact with through a stable, authenticated API.

Components

REQUESTORS                              APPROVERS
──────────                              ────────────────────────
jitsudo CLI ──┐                         OPA (Tier 1, auto)
              │                         AI agent via MCP (Tier 2)
MCP server ───┤── gRPC / REST (mTLS) ──▶ Human via Slack/CLI (Tier 3)
  (requestor) │
Slack bot ────┘

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  jitsudod Control Plane                      │
│  ┌─────────────┐  ┌──────────────┐  ┌────────────────────┐  │
│  │ Auth/OIDC   │  │ Policy Engine│  │  Request Manager   │  │
│  │ (SSO bridge)│  │ (OPA) + Tier │  │  (state machine +  │  │
│  │             │  │   Router     │  │   approval routing)│  │
│  └─────────────┘  └──────────────┘  └────────────────────┘  │
│  ┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐     │
│  │              Provider Adapter Layer                 │     │
│  │   [AWS]    [Azure]    [GCP]    [Kubernetes]         │     │
│  └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘     │
│  ┌──────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────────────────┐      │
│  │  Audit Log   │  │   Notification Dispatcher        │      │
│  │ (SHA-256     │  │  (Slack / email / webhook)       │      │
│  │  hash chain) │  │                                  │      │
│  └──────────────┘  └──────────────────────────────────┘      │
│  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐   │
│  │                     PostgreSQL                        │   │
│  └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘   │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                       │
        ┌──────────────┼──────────────┬──────────────┐
        ▼              ▼              ▼              ▼
    AWS IAM         Azure RBAC     GCP IAM      K8s RBAC

The MCP server serves two distinct roles: as a requestor (agents submit elevation requests on their own behalf) and as an approver (AI agents evaluate pending requests and approve, deny, or escalate). See Approval Model for the full design and risk asymmetry between these roles.

Kubernetes Analogy

Kubernetes	jitsudo	Description
kube-apiserver	jitsudod	The authoritative control plane
kubectl	jitsudo CLI	The primary human-operated client
Kubelet, operators	Approval bots, webhooks	Programmatic clients using the same API
RBAC	OPA policy engine	Defines who can do what
etcd	PostgreSQL	Persistent state store

Key Principle: CLI Has No Backdoors

The CLI interacts with the control plane exclusively through the public API. There are no internal RPCs, privileged endpoints, or out-of-band communication paths available to the CLI that are not also available to any other authenticated HTTP client.