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Telemetry
Identity security

authentication_attempt_completed event schema

A terminal sign-in outcome with bounded method, result, and risk fields. It deliberately excludes credentials, tokens, raw IP addresses, and free-form provider errors.

Reviewed by the Telemetry product team on . Event grain, ownership, field types, privacy classification, example payload, and validation. Review standards and ownership

Question this contract answers

Which authentication methods, clients, and risk categories are producing failures or suspicious bursts?

Fields
8
Required
5
Contract evidence path

authentication_attempt_completed: from owned boundary to trusted query

Treat authentication_attempt_completed as a durable analytical contract: the owner emits one documented grain, a fixture proves the fields, and a reviewed query answers the stated question.

  1. 1

    Outcome becomes final

    Identity service after the provider outcome is known emits only after authentication succeeds, fails, is challenged, or is rate limited.

  2. 2

    Contract is bounded

    5 required fields preserve the declared grain: One completed authentication attempt.

  3. 3

    Fixture is verified

    Check types, UTC time, alternate outcomes, idempotency, and every pseudonymous or review-classified field.

  4. 4

    Question is answered

    Which authentication methods, clients, and risk categories are producing failures or suspicious bursts?

Grain

One completed authentication attempt.

Owner

Identity service after the provider outcome is known

Emit when

After authentication succeeds, fails, is challenged, or is rate limited.

Field contract

Typed fields with explicit privacy boundaries

Keep existing field names and types stable after production queries depend on them. Optional context should remain bounded, documented, and justified by a specific decision.

FieldTypeRequiredPrivacyMeaning
timestamp_utctimestampyesnon-sensitiveUTC time at the outcome boundary.
event_idstringyesnon-sensitiveStable unique identifier used for deduplication.
releasestringyesnon-sensitiveApplication or service version that emitted the event.
actor_idstringnopseudonymousStable internal actor identifier when the account is known.
session_idstringnopseudonymousRotating session or attempt correlation identifier.
auth_methodstringyesnon-sensitiveBounded method such as password, passkey, SSO, or recovery.
outcomestringyesnon-sensitiveSuccess, invalid_credentials, challenged, denied, or rate_limited.
risk_categorystringnoreviewReviewed low-cardinality risk classification, not a raw fingerprint.

Synthetic JSON event

{
  "timestamp_utc": "2026-07-29T09:12:00Z",
  "event_id": "evt_auth_01",
  "release": "2026.07.3",
  "actor_id": "user_91ac",
  "session_id": "session_b471",
  "auth_method": "passkey",
  "outcome": "success",
  "risk_category": "normal"
}

Privacy review

Review identifiers before ingestion

This example uses synthetic identifiers. Pseudonymous values can still be personal data, and review fields can expose business or provider context. Apply your own consent, retention, access, residency, and deletion requirements.

  • actor_id: pseudonymous
  • session_id: pseudonymous
  • risk_category: review

Validation checklist

Prove the contract before building a dashboard

  • Send one known authentication_attempt_completed fixture after the documented outcome boundary.
  • Verify all 5 required fields arrive with the documented types.
  • Retry the same event identifier and confirm the chosen deduplication behavior.
  • Send a controlled failure or alternate outcome when the workflow supports one.
  • Run the related SQL over a fixed window and reconcile the result to the fixture.

Common mistakes

Keep one row equal to one durable outcome

  • Emitting authentication_attempt_completed before identity service after the provider outcome is known knows the final outcome.
  • Mixing several grains in one table, which makes counts and rates ambiguous.
  • Replacing controlled categories with raw URLs, payloads, prompts, or error text.
  • Changing a field type in place after saved queries and dashboards depend on it.
  • Adding identifiers without a documented investigation, access, and retention need.

Use the contract

Query and operationalize the event

Related contracts

Send a fixture before production traffic

Create a free API key, send the synthetic event, and inspect the inferred table before connecting a live workflow.

Test this schema