Secure Autonomous AI Agents with Scoped Access Control using Keycard

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Developers Secure Autonomous AI Agents with Scoped Access Using Keycard Platform

As enterprises rebuild business functions around artificial intelligence (AI) agents, developers face a daunting challenge: providing agents with sufficient access to perform tasks while preventing overreach and data breaches.

Keycard Fills Security Gap for Multi-Agents Architectures

According to Ian Livingstone, CEO of Keycard, “Agents built using Keycard don’t experience the traditional trade-off between security and functionality.” With Keycard, developers can deploy agents into production without requiring expertise in security or identity management, a significant advantage over traditional approaches.

Mult-Agent Workflows and Risks

Multi-agent architectures are becoming increasingly popular for building AI applications, but they come with inherent risks. Shared API keys, inherited credentials, and persistent access can lead to unauthorized access and data exfiltration.

Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps Solution

Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps fills this gap by providing every agent with verifiable identity without relying on long-lived API keys or credentials. Developers can build agents and tools using Keycard’s SDKs for Python and TypeScript, which automatically receive their identity through runtime attestation when an agent starts.

Three Delegation Patterns Supported by Keycard

Agents acting on their own behalf: across multi-hop workflows, with scoped identity and delegated access.
Agents acting on behalf of humans or other agents: through explicit delegation, preserving the full chain of authority from the originating user to every downstream agent.
Agents impersonating other agents or humans: under policy constraints for specific operational workflows, with complete audit transparency.

Integration and Consistency Across Different Workflows

All three patterns use the same SDK, policy engine, and control plane, ensuring seamless integration and consistency across different workflows.

Security Features of Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps

Evaluates policy as part of every token exchange using OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange (RFC 8693)
Scopes access to the task and narrows permissions at each hop
No agent ever holds more privilege than the task requires or policy allows

Conclusion

By providing developers with the tools to build and ship multi-agent apps that work across clouds and giving security teams the controls to govern them, Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps addresses the critical needs of enterprises looking to adopt AI agents securely and efficiently.

According to Ian Livingstone, CEO of Keycard, “We’re excited to bring our expertise in identity and access management to the growing community of developers building multi-agent applications.”

Deploying Keycard for Multi-Agent Apps is straightforward, as it runs on various platforms, including Vercel, Cloudflare, Fly.io, AWS, GCP, Azure, and more. Identity travels with the agent, eliminating the need for static secrets, rotations, or protection. Finally, the platform connects agents to any tool or service, working seamlessly with APIs, databases, and SaaS platforms, controlled by policies that set limits on agent access and permissions.