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A service identity proves which workload is making a request; it does not prove that a user authorized the workload to access their data. For a user-delegated request, systems need to preserve both identities and evaluate the user’s authorization separately from the service’s permissions. A service may access data without a user context only when policy explicitly allows that system-level task.
What service identity establishes—and what it does not
Authentication establishes the identity of the caller. In a service-to-service request, a valid credential can identify the workload, such as an API, agent, or batch job. Authorization determines whether that caller may perform a particular action on a particular resource in the request’s context.
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Those are distinct questions. A service credential can show that a trusted workload is calling, but it does not by itself establish that a human user consented to access user-specific data. NIST’s API protection guidance describes authenticating and authorizing both the calling service and the end user, with access policy enforced at infrastructure hops (NIST SP 800-204).
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Service-owned operation
Some workloads legitimately perform system-level work without an end-user identity. A scheduled batch process, for example, might be explicitly authorized to process records across multiple users. In that design, the policy should deliberately grant the workload a narrowly defined system role; the lack of user context must not silently turn into broad access.
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User-delegated operation
When a service acts on a person’s behalf—such as retrieving that person’s account data—the request needs verifiable user authorization context as well as the service identity. The authorization decision should consider both: whether the workload is permitted to make the call and whether the user context permits the requested action on the specific resource.
A useful design check is to ask whether the operation would still be valid if the user context were removed. If yes, it may be a service-owned task, subject to explicit system policy. If no, the request must not be authorized solely because the service authenticated successfully.
Keep service permissions and user permissions separate
Give the service identity only the permissions needed to perform its technical role. Evaluate user-specific constraints against the user identity or its verifiable delegated context, rather than treating the service’s broader permissions as a substitute for the user’s rights. AWS recommends this separation for agent systems: least privilege for the service identity, user-context constraints evaluated separately, and transaction limits applied at the invocation layer (AWS AgentCore identity permissions).
This separation also clarifies limits. A service role may be allowed to reach a data system, while the user context limits which account or records can be accessed. Invocation-level controls can further constrain what a particular request may do. These controls address different parts of the decision and should not be collapsed into one broad service credential.
Preserve both identities through the call chain
On-behalf-of requests often pass through gateways and multiple services. If an intermediate component discards the user context, a downstream service may see only a trusted service identity and make an authorization decision without the information needed to distinguish a user request from a system task. Preserve the service identity and user context—or use a deliberate, verifiable exchange—so downstream policy can evaluate the request appropriately and logs can attribute the action to both.
- NIST API guidance: describes gateways mediating service credentials into a user identity domain, allowing service and end-user authorization to be handled together where needed (NIST SP 800-204).
- Google Cloud infrastructure: describes verifying an end-user credential, issuing a short-lived context ticket, and passing that context through downstream RPC calls. Its infrastructure guidance also distinguishes cryptographic service identities from the access rules owners define (Google, Secure Communication in the Google Cloud).
- AWS AgentCore: distinguishes the agent’s workload identity from human-user context. Its guidance describes agent-scoped tokens with user-context claims for delegated access (identity permissions; AgentCore Identity).
These mechanisms are platform-specific; they are not interchangeable token formats. The architectural requirement is to ensure the receiving service can verify the workload and the relevant user authorization context rather than trusting an unverified user identifier passed as ordinary data.
Choose the right mechanism for the kind of access
| Request type | Identity context to retain | Authorization focus |
|---|---|---|
| Service-owned scheduled or internal task | Service identity; user context may be absent by design | Explicit, narrowly scoped system policy for the task and resources |
| Service acting on behalf of an authenticated user | Service identity plus verifiable user context, propagated or exchanged | Service permission and the user’s resource/action authorization |
| Agent accessing user-specific external data | Agent identity plus user authorization context | Separate workload authentication from user consent and delegated access |
For user-specific external data, AWS AgentCore distinguishes direct workload authentication from OAuth authorization-code consent. That distinction matters: authenticating an agent identifies the workload, while a user-consent flow establishes authorization for the user’s data (AWS AgentCore Identity).
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Apply the principle when configuring cloud and database access
Cloud workload identity features solve the workload-authentication part of the problem. For example, Microsoft documents Azure SQL managed identities as a token-based way for a workload to authenticate; service principal credentials are another documented method. Microsoft cautions that client-secret authentication is not recommended because passwords may be guessed or leaked (Microsoft: Microsoft Entra service principals with Azure SQL). Neither the managed identity nor a service principal, by itself, proves that an end user authorized access to that user’s records.
When designing such a system, check that the database or downstream API enforces the intended authorization boundary. If access is delegated, pass a trusted user context and have the resource or policy enforcement layer apply the relevant user-level rules. If the workload is acting under a system role, define that role and its scope explicitly.
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What to verify in an implementation
- Operation type: document whether each endpoint performs service-owned work or acts on behalf of a user.
- Identity propagation: confirm downstream components can verify both the calling service and any user context, including after gateways or token exchanges.
- Policy enforcement: make the resource or policy enforcement layer evaluate the identities and requested action, instead of inferring user permission from service authentication.
- Credential scope: keep service permissions limited to the workload’s role and separate from user-specific constraints.
- Attribution: retain distinct service and user attribution in audit records so an action is not recorded as if only one identity were involved.
- Missing context: define whether a request with no user identity is a permitted system operation. For user-delegated endpoints, reject or otherwise deny requests that lack the required verifiable user context.
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