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A certificate policy defines the rules that certificates must follow — allowed domains, validity periods, key algorithms, and more. Policies ensure that every certificate issued through Certificate Manager meets your organization’s security and compliance requirements.
Certificate policies are created by product admins and shared across the organization. Teams consume policies through Certificate Profiles.

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How Policies Work

When a certificate is requested, Certificate Manager validates the request against the policy bound to its profile. If the request violates any policy constraint, the certificate is not issued. This enforcement happens automatically — teams don’t need to know the policy details. They just request certificates, and the policy ensures compliance.

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Create a Certificate Policy

Navigate to Certificate Manager → Certificate Policies and click Create.

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Policy Presets

For common use cases, select a preset to pre-fill all the right settings:
For most TLS use cases, start with the TLS Server Certificate preset. You can customize any settings after selecting a preset.

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Basic Settings

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Subject Attributes

Control what X.509 distinguished name attributes can appear in certificates: For each attribute, configure enforcement:
Values that must be present. The request is rejected if the attribute is missing or doesn’t match the required pattern.
Values that are permitted but not required. Accepts fixed values or wildcard patterns like *.example.com.
Values that must not appear. The request is rejected if the attribute matches a denied pattern.
Domain Component (DC) support is for requests that use DC attributes explicitly. Each DC value is matched independently against the Domain Component rule (like a Subject Alternative Name), separately from the Common Name. A subject can carry more than one domain component (for example CN=host, DC=auth, DC=example, DC=app), so allow the labels your requests use, such as auth, example, and app, or a pattern like *.
Any subject attribute in a certificate request that isn’t explicitly defined in the policy will be rejected. If no subject rules are defined, any request with subject attributes will fail.

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Subject Alternative Names (SANs)

Control which SANs can appear on certificates: Each SAN rule specifies the type, a pattern (fixed or wildcard), and whether to allow or deny it.

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Key & Signature Algorithms

Restrict which cryptographic algorithms are permitted:

Signature Algorithms

  • SHA256-RSA
  • SHA384-RSA
  • SHA512-RSA
  • SHA256-ECDSA
  • SHA384-ECDSA

Key Algorithms

  • RSA-2048
  • RSA-4096
  • ECDSA-P256
  • ECDSA-P384
  • Ed25519

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Key Usages

Define the cryptographic purposes of certificates:

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Extended Key Usages

Define higher-level intended uses:

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Basic Constraints

Control whether certificates can act as CAs: Maximum Path Length: Limits how many intermediate CAs can exist below this certificate. 0 means the CA can only sign end-entity certificates.

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Next Steps

Once you’ve created a policy, combine it with a CA in a Certificate Profile that teams can consume.