Integrating External Digital Membership Card API with OctoPrint Plugin

Development
1

Hi all,

I’m exploring an integration idea where OctoPrint would validate users through an external digital membership card system before allowing printer access in a shared lab environment.

The concept is:

User scans a QR/NFC-based digital membership card
OctoPrint plugin sends API request to external server
Server validates membership status
Printer controls (start/stop/access) are enabled based on response

I’d like to understand:

What would be the best way to securely handle external API authentication in an OctoPrint plugin?
How should token/session validation be managed if the printer runs offline?
Are there existing plugins that demonstrate similar external authentication workflows?

2

Probably something integrating acl_keyvalidator_hook and maybe user_manager_factory_hook. The closest thing I've seen to this type of plugin that interacts with the login is GitHub - gillg/OctoPrint-LDAP: Octoprint LDAP auth plugin, GitHub - JoveToo/OctoPrint-MFA: Multi Factor Authentication for OctoPrint, and GitHub - OctoPrint/OctoPrint-MfaTotp: Plugin to support TOTP based Two Factor Authentication in OctoPrint >= 1.11.0.