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Authenticated Delegation & Agent Identity(AD)
Gives agents a verifiable identity plus scoped, auditable authority to act on behalf of a user. Short-lived OAuth and OIDC tokens map to explicit capabilities, intent-bound delegation tokens encode what the agent is allowed to do, and verifiable credentials let agents establish trust across MCP and A2A hops. Every action carries a checkable claim, so authority can be constrained ahead of time and audited afterward, and out-of-scope requests are rejected at the resource server.
In 30 seconds
- What
- Issues short-lived, intent-bound tokens that encode what an agent can do, with every action signed and auditable back to the delegating user.
- When to use
- Agents need to act on behalf of users with verifiable, scoped authority and a complete audit trail of who did what and when.
- Watch out
- Token expiry and constraint enforcement must be checked at every resource boundary, or scope creep and stale permissions will silently bypass controls.
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Authenticated Delegation & Agent Identity: Overview
Gives agents a verifiable identity plus scoped, auditable authority to act on behalf of a user. Short-lived OAuth and OIDC tokens map to explicit capabilities, intent-bound delegation tokens encode what the agent is allowed to do, and verifiable credentials let agents establish trust across MCP and A2A hops. Every action carries a checkable claim, so authority can be constrained ahead of time and audited afterward, and out-of-scope requests are rejected at the resource server.
- Verifiable, distinct identity for each agent
- Short-lived OAuth/OIDC tokens mapped to specific capabilities
- Intent-bound delegation tokens encode allowed scope and constraints
- Verifiable credentials for cross-agent trust over MCP and A2A
- Every action produces an auditable, attributable record
- Out-of-scope requests rejected at the resource server
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References
The papers, specifications, and repositories this pattern is based on.
- Authenticated Delegation and Authorized AI AgentsarXiv:2501.09674
- Agentic JWT (A-JWT): A Secure Delegation Protocol for Autonomous AI AgentsarXiv:2509.13597
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