Modern Web Guidance

Passkey Management Guide

This guide details how to enable users to view, rename, and delete their registered passkeys while keeping saved credentials perfectly synchronized between the server and the user's password managers using the Signal API.

Server-Side Operations

Your backend database layer and endpoints MUST support common CRUD actions for registered credentials. Decoupled from framework-specific libraries, the server exposes endpoints to:

1. List all user credentials: Fetch all StoredPasskeyCredential records matching the signed-in user's ID.

2. Update credential names: Accept a new custom string name for a specific credential ID and persist the update.

3. Delete credentials: Remove a specific credential ID from the database.

// Node.js routing example for credential CRUD
router.get('/api/credentials', checkUserAuthenticated, async (req, res) => {
  const list = await db.findCredentialsByUserId(req.user.id);
  return res.json(list);
});

router.put('/api/credential/:id', checkUserAuthenticated, async (req, res) => {
  const { id } = req.params;
  const { name } = req.body;
  const cred = await db.findCredentialById(id);
  if (!cred || cred.passkeyUserId !== req.user.id) {
    return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Credential not found.' });
  }
  cred.name = name;
  await db.saveCredential(cred);
  return res.json(cred);
});

router.delete('/api/credential/:id', checkUserAuthenticated, async (req, res) => {
  const { id } = req.params;
  const cred = await db.findCredentialById(id);
  if (!cred || cred.passkeyUserId !== req.user.id) {
    return res.status(404).json({ error: 'Credential not found.' });
  }
  await db.deleteCredential(id);
  return res.json({ success: true });
});

Client-Side Management UI

Render a dedicated settings panel allowing users to easily audit and manage their registered authentication options:

1. Display saved list: Fetch list from your endpoint and render individual credential rows. If the response is empty, render a helpful empty-state message (e.g., "No passkeys found").

2. Map AAGUID Metadata: For each passkey, lookup its aaguid property against your local registry to render its provider details. See Determine the passkey provider from AAGUID section for more details.

3. Per-Item UI Requirements: Every row inside the list container MUST render:

   • Provider Icon: AAGUID-derived image or data URI.

   • Provider/Custom Name: AAGUID-derived name or user-renamed string.

   • Registration Date: The database-persisted raw epoch timestamp registeredAt formatted to a human-readable date for client display.

   • Last Used Date: The database-persisted raw epoch timestamp lastUsedAt formatted to a human-readable date (if present) for client display.

   • Rename Button: Triggers a rename text input modal.

   • Delete Button: Triggers deletion.

4. Conditional "Create Passkey" Button:

   • Offer a prominent "Create passkey" registration trigger button on the management page. Before rendering this UI element, the page MUST feature-detect capabilities using PublicKeyCredential.getClientCapabilities() to verify platform authenticator is supported. If passkeys are unsupported, hide this button and gracefully encourage standard MFA enrollments instead.

   • Allow registering a security key by omitting authenticatorSelection.authenticatorAttachment on navigator.credentials.create() call.

Signal API Synchronization

The Signal API lets the application communicate credential states to password managers, keeping the user's synced vaults and your backend database in lockstep.

• Parameter Encoding Rule:

  • All userId and credential ID parameters passed to Signal API methods (signalAllAcceptedCredentials, signalCurrentUserDetails) MUST be Base64URL-encoded strings.

• Initiating Page Load Sync:

  • The application MUST invoke signalAllAcceptedCredentials() automatically in a DOMContentLoaded page load event listener.

• Management Updates Sync:

  • The application MUST invoke signalAllAcceptedCredentials() immediately within your delete credential click handler post-fetch.

  • The application MUST invoke signalCurrentUserDetails() immediately within your username or display name rename click handler post-fetch.

// Client-side management synchronization ES module
import { listFetch, renameFetch, deleteFetch } from './api.js';

// Base64URL-encoded User ID string (illustration only)
const base64UrlUserId = "M2YPl-KGnA8";

async function syncAcceptedCredentials(currentCredentialsList) {
  try {
    const credentialIds = currentCredentialsList.map(c => c.id); // Map of Base64URL credential ID strings
    
    await PublicKeyCredential.signalAllAcceptedCredentials({
      rpId, // RP ID must match the one defined on the server
      userId: base64UrlUserId, // User ID Base64URL-encoded string
      allAcceptedCredentialIds: credentialIds
    });
  } catch (e) {
    console.error('SignalAllAcceptedCredentials sync failure:', e);
  }
}

async function loadManagementPanel() {
  const response = await listFetch();
  const list = await response.json();
  
  renderUI(list);
  // Sync on page load
  await syncAcceptedCredentials(list);
}

async function performDelete(credentialId) {
  const response = await deleteFetch(credentialId);
  if (response.ok) {
    const updatedResponse = await listFetch();
    const updatedList = await updatedResponse.json();
    
    renderUI(updatedList);
    // Sync after deletion
    await syncAcceptedCredentials(updatedList);
  }
}

async function performRename(rpId, userId, updatedName, updatedDisplayName) {
  const response = await renameFetch({ name: updatedName, displayName: updatedDisplayName });
  if (response.ok) {
    try {
      await PublicKeyCredential.signalCurrentUserDetails({
        rpId, // RP ID must match the one defined on the server
        userId, // Base64URL-encoded user ID
        name: updatedName, // Updated username
        displayName: updatedDisplayName // Updated display name
      });
    } catch (e) {
      console.error('SignalCurrentUserDetails sync failure:', e);
    }
  }
}

Determine the passkey provider from AAGUID {: #aaguid }

An AAGUID (Authenticator Attestation Globally Unique Identifier) is a 128-bit identifier that represents the model of the authenticator, not a specific instance. It is included in the authenticator data during passkey registration and can be used to determine which passkey provider (e.g. Google Password Manager, iCloud Keychain, 1Password) created a credential.

AAGUID should only be used to help users with passkey management. It can be modified unless cryptographically attested, which platform passkeys currently don't support.

1. AAGUID Registry

A community-maintained JSON mapping of AAGUIDs to provider names and icons is available at:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/passkeydeveloper/passkey-authenticator-aaguids/refs/heads/main/combined_aaguid.json

Each entry has the following schema:

{
  "<aaguid-uuid>": {
    "name": "Provider Name",
    "icon_light": "data:image/png;base64,...",
    "icon_dark": "data:image/png;base64,..."
  }
}

2. Using AAGUID After Registration

After verifying a registration response, read the aaguid from the registration result and look it up against the registry to populate the credential's name and providerIcon:

Before looking up the AAGUID in the registry, check if it equals '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000'. If so, skip the registry lookup and set name to a fallback (e.g. device name from user-agent, or "Unknown passkey provider") and providerIcon to undefined. Only look up the registry for non-zeroed AAGUIDs.

import aaguids from './aaguids.json' with { type: 'json' };

const { aaguid } = registrationInfo;
if (aaguid === '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000') {
  // use the device name as the passkey provider based on
  // the information derived from the user agent string,
  // or just say "Unknown passkey provider"
} else {
  const provider = aaguids[aaguid];
  const credential = {
    // ...other fields
    aaguid,
    name: provider?.name || 'Unknown passkey provider',
    providerIcon: provider?.icon_light,
  };
}

Fallback Strategies

Passkey feature detection fallback

Baseline status for the api.PublicKeyCredential.getClientCapabilities_static capability: Newly available. It's been Baseline since 2025-02-06. Supported by: Chrome 133 (Feb 2025), Edge 133 (Feb 2025), Firefox 135 (Feb 2025), and Safari 17.4 (Mar 2024).

Always install 'webauthn-polyfills' and import it in the context. Consider as long as PublicKeyCredential is supported, PublicKeyCredential.getClientCapabilities is also supported.

import 'webauthn-polyfills';

Signal API Synchronization Fallback

Web authentication signal methods has limited availability. Supported by: Chrome 132 (Jan 2025), Edge 132 (Jan 2025), and Safari 26 (Sep 2025). Unsupported in: Firefox. If the browser does not support PublicKeyCredential.parseRequestOptionsFromJSON, use the 'webauthn-polyfills':

<script type="module"> 
  if (!PublicKeyCredential.parseRequestOptionsFromJSON) { 
     await import('https://unpkg.com/webauthn-polyfills'); 
   } 
 </script> 

This will also add support for PublicKeyCredential.prototype.toJSON.