Credential Provider
Noun · Development
Definitions
A component or service that supplies credentials to an application, often by loading them from environment variables, metadata services, secret stores, or federated identity systems. Credential providers help centralize how software acquires and refreshes authentication material.
In plain English: A mechanism that gives an application the credentials it should use.
Example: "In production the SDK used a credential provider that pulled short-lived tokens from the instance role instead of reading static keys from disk."