GPG user management is not about generating a key once and forgetting it. It is about lifecycle control—creation, rotation, revocation, and audit—without gaps. Done poorly, it leaves your secure channels exposed. Done well, it allows you to maintain airtight identity and verify every signature across your organization.
Create and assign keys with precision. Use gpg --full-generate-key to produce strong RSA-4096 or ECC keys. Bind keys to unique user IDs. Never reuse or share them between accounts. Store private keys on secure hardware or encrypted filesystem locations with strict permissions.
Key distribution is strategic. Publish public keys to a trusted keyserver or distribute them through internal secure endpoints. Verify fingerprints before trusting. Automate validation in your CI pipelines by importing keys once and locking them to known fingerprints.
Rotation is non-negotiable. Schedule rotations and enforce them at the team level. Decommission old keys immediately using gpg --delete-secret-key and revoke publicly using gpg --gen-revoke. Maintain a rollback window to address deployment mismatches.