17CORE PRODUCT

Authentication & Attestation

Authentication proves “who”; policy decides “may this identity do this action under these conditions?”

Priority: P0
Phase: MVP
Primary owner: IAM / Security Eng
Status: Blueprint

Objective

Authentication proves which agent or workload is making a request. Attestation strengthens that proof by checking properties of the workload or deployment. The product should support multiple enterprise authentication patterns because agent environments vary widely.

What to build

OAuth 2.0/OIDC tokens for agent sessions and delegated access where supported.
mTLS/service certificates for gateways and machine-to-machine connections.
Cloud workload identities for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud.
Signed agent manifests or deployment attestations for higher-assurance environments.
Optional device/workload posture signals for sensitive tools.

Implementation decisions

Issue short-lived credentials with audience, scope and expiry.
Rotate signing keys and maintain key identifiers for historical verification.
Validate token audience and intended tool/resource, not just signature validity.
Support step-up verification before high-impact operations.

Definition of done

Expired/revoked tokens fail closed.
Authentication failures are distinguishable from policy denials.
Customers can define minimum assurance levels per resource/action.

Success metrics

Auth failure rate
Short-lived credential adoption
High-assurance session percentage
Key rotation compliance

SECURITY POSTURE

Authentication proves “who”; policy decides “may this identity do this action under these conditions?”