Certificate timeline & events

Every certificate in CertAutoPilot carries a timeline of every lifecycle event — request, approval, issuance, renewal, distribution, revocation, download. Events are event-sourced (not log-parsed) and stored in the cert_events collection with cursor-based pagination; the timeline surface in the UI is just a read over this collection.

01Event types

Type	When emitted	Payload highlights
`cert.requested`	Issuance form submitted	actor, issuer, subject
`cert.approved`	Approval request accepted (if policy gates issuance)	approver, approval_id
`cert.issued`	CA returned the certificate	fingerprint, not_before, not_after, chain_depth
`cert.renewed`	Renewal (or reissue) succeeded	trigger (`scheduler`/`manual`/`reissue`), new fingerprint
`cert.renewal_failed`	Renewal attempt failed (every retry)	attempt, error_class, next_retry_at
`cert.expiring_soon`	Expiration check sweeps at 30/14/7/3/1 day thresholds	days_remaining, threshold
`cert.expired`	Past `not_after`	expired_for
`cert.revoked`	CA confirmed revocation	reason_code, reason, actor, note
`cert.distributed`	Distribution finished successfully	distribution_id, module, targets_succeeded
`cert.distribution_failed`	Distribution ended in failed / partial	distribution_id, error_class, targets_failed
`cert.distribution_rolled_back`	Rollback executed	distribution_id, rolled_back_by
`cert.downloaded`	Manual download through the UI or API	format, actor, ip
`cert.policy_violation`	Issuance blocked by the certificate policy	rule, offending_value
`cert.ocsp_revoked`	Discovery probe sees OCSP status `revoked`	responder, checked_at
`cert.msca_pending`	MSCA CA returned pending (manual approval needed)	request_id, connection_id
`cert.msca_approved`	MSCA pending request approved in Windows	request_id
`cert.msca_pending_timeout`	MSCA pending exceeded 7 days	request_id

02How events are emitted

A singleton CertEventEmitter injected into every service calls Emit() synchronously from the domain code. Emission is best-effort — a transient Mongo write failure is logged but does not block the action. For critical audit trails use the separate HMAC-chained audit logs which are transactional.

03Timeline on the UI

Certificate detail page → Timeline tab.
Filter by event type (checkboxes).
Cursor-based pagination (the server returns 50 events per page with a next_cursor pointer).
Each entry expands to show the full payload + actor identity.

04Query via API

GET /api/v1/projects/{projectId}/certificates/{id}/events
    ?type=cert.renewed,cert.revoked
    &after=2026-01-01T00:00:00Z
    &limit=100
    &cursor=<opaque>

Returns the events plus a next_cursor when more pages are available. See API reference.

05Retention

Events are retained indefinitely by default. If your compliance policy needs a retention cutoff, run a scheduled db.cert_events.deleteMany({"ts": {"$lt": ...}}) job; CertAutoPilot does not auto-trim.

06Routing to notifications

Every event can trigger a notification rule. See notifications → event types for the full mapping and templating.

07Troubleshooting

Expected event missing from the timeline

Emission is best-effort; a transient Mongo issue can drop an event. Cross-check with Jobs (every workflow writes a job record) or the Audit log (transactional and chained).

Events arrived out of order

Events are timestamped at emit. Clock skew between API/worker/scheduler pods can produce sub-second out-of-order display. Order by seq (monotonic per-cert counter) rather than timestamp for strict ordering.