Integrating Dependabot with Cloudsmith Using OIDC

OpenID Connect (OIDC) offers ephemeral tokens, reducing the risk of long-lived credentials being exposed. This guide explains how to configure GitHub Dependabot to authenticate with Cloudsmith using OIDC. The process involves creating a service account in Cloudsmith, configuring OIDC authentication for GitHub Actions in Cloudsmith, setting up access controls in Cloudsmith, adding a Fine-Grained Personal Access Token (PAT) in GitHub for Dependabot, creating DEP_CLOUDSMITH_API_KEY secret for Dependabot, configuring the dependabot.yml file, and setting up a GitHub Action workflow to overwrite the Dependabot API key with an ephemeral OIDC token. This setup enhances security by using short-lived Cloudsmith OIDC tokens and regularly updating the DEP_CLOUDSMITH_API_KEY secret.