Question on Extending SecretAgent for a New NetworkManager Feature

[RATHAN APPANA]

Dear NetworkManager maintainers,

I'm exploring a research project whose goal is to show a dialogue when
connecting to an Enterprise Wi-Fi network, but the network's certificate is
unknown. The idea is that the certificate can then be trusted on a
first-use basis.

To prototype this, I’ve been exploring the possibility of reusing the
existing AgentManager and SecretAgent infrastructure, since it already
facilitates communication between NetworkManager and external user-facing
agents like nm-applet and GNOME Shell. However, as I dug deeper, I noticed
that the current design is quite specialized for secrets only and adapting
it for our use case would require adding new capabilities, extending the
D-Bus interface, and implementing new methods on both the agent and daemon
sides.

So my core question is: is it considered upstream-friendly to extend the
SecretAgent system beyond secret management, to support other types of user
prompts? Or would a different, dedicated interface be more acceptable for
this kind of feature?

Secondly, I’ve found that the SecretAgent infrastructure is more complex
than I initially expected; it touches multiple layers of NetworkManager,
and adding even a small feature seems to require a lot of coordination
between agents, capability negotiation, and D-Bus implementation. I’m
trying to better understand how flexible the architecture is for extensions
like this, and whether there are any guidelines or suggestions you’d
recommend before I go too far in the wrong direction.

If you have any insights or even just a high-level opinion on the
direction, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks for your time and for all your
work on NetworkManager,  it’s been fascinating to learn from and work with.

Best regards,
Rathan Appana
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