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Deprecate Authenticator Attachment in favor of Hints#2383

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akshayku wants to merge 8 commits intomainfrom
attachment-deprecation
Open

Deprecate Authenticator Attachment in favor of Hints#2383
akshayku wants to merge 8 commits intomainfrom
attachment-deprecation

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@akshayku
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Closes #2053

The following tasks have been completed:

  • Modified Web platform tests (link)

Implementation commitment:

Documentation and checks

  • Affects privacy
  • Affects security
  • Updated explainer (link)

akshayku and others added 6 commits January 28, 2026 22:17
Co-authored-by: Tim Cappalli <tim@cloudauth.dev>
Co-authored-by: Tim Cappalli <tim@cloudauth.dev>
<div dfn-type="dict-member" dfn-for="AuthenticatorSelectionCriteria">
: <dfn>authenticatorAttachment</dfn>
:: If this member is present, eligible [=authenticators=] are filtered to be only those authenticators attached with the specified
:: Note: This member is deprecated in favor of {{PublicKeyCredentialCreationOptions/hints}}. [=[RPS]=] SHOULD use {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/client-device}} instead of {{AuthenticatorAttachment/platform}}, and {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/security-key}} and/or {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/hybrid}} instead of {{AuthenticatorAttachment/cross-platform}} for [=registration ceremony|registration=].
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Hints support ordering by preference, a nuance that's not currently captured in this value-mapping guidance. I'd rather the nuance be thoroughly explained in the section on User-agent Hints Enumeration, but perhaps here we can simply mention it:

Suggested change
:: Note: This member is deprecated in favor of {{PublicKeyCredentialCreationOptions/hints}}. [=[RPS]=] SHOULD use {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/client-device}} instead of {{AuthenticatorAttachment/platform}}, and {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/security-key}} and/or {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/hybrid}} instead of {{AuthenticatorAttachment/cross-platform}} for [=registration ceremony|registration=].
:: Note: This member is deprecated in favor of {{PublicKeyCredentialCreationOptions/hints}}. [=[RPS]=] SHOULD use {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/client-device}} instead of {{AuthenticatorAttachment/platform}}, and {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/security-key}} and/or {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/hybrid}} (ordered by decreasing preference) instead of {{AuthenticatorAttachment/cross-platform}} for [=registration ceremony|registration=].


### Authenticator Attachment Enumeration (enum <dfn enum>AuthenticatorAttachment</dfn>) ### {#enum-attachment}

Note: Authenticator Attachment is being deprecated in favor of {{PublicKeyCredentialHint}}. The {{AuthenticatorAttachment/platform}} value is superseded by {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/client-device}}, and {{AuthenticatorAttachment/cross-platform}} is superseded by {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/security-key}} and {{PublicKeyCredentialHint/hybrid}}. [=[RPS]=] SHOULD use {{PublicKeyCredentialCreationOptions/hints}} instead of {{AuthenticatorSelectionCriteria/authenticatorAttachment}}.
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I have a similar note here: without mentioning the ability to order hints by preference, it'll look to RPs like they must specify cross-platform hints as ["security-key", "hybrid"] when it's totally valid to specify them as ["hybrid", "security-key"] if an RP's preferences deemed it more appropriate.

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Deprecate AuthenticatorAttachment in favor of PublicKeyCredentialHints.

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