Applications running in Kubernetes Pods are authenticated against the Kubernetes API with their corresponding ServiceAccount tokens. These JWT tokens are usually mounted into containers as files. JWT tokens are signed by the Kubernetes cluster’s private key, and can be validated only with the TokenReview API. This API is not widely recognized and, to access it, external systems must first authenticate against Kubernetes to review ServiceAccounts. This configuration and access review process is considerably more complex than necessary, not to mention that it leaves out widely accepted standards like OIDC.