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Authenticated delegation answers three separate questions: Which agent is making this request? Who authorized it to act? What may it do to this particular resource? A secure system checks the agent’s identity, verifies the authority it received, and then lets the receiving service decide whether the requested action is allowed. A valid identity token or signature alone does not grant permission.
Authentication, delegation and authorization are different checks
These terms describe linked but distinct parts of a request:
- Authentication establishes control of an identity credential. It helps a service determine which agent or workload is calling.
- Delegation conveys authority from a principal—such as a user or organization—to an agent. It should make clear whose authority the agent is using and what limits apply.
- Authorization is the receiving service’s decision about whether that caller may perform the requested operation on the requested resource.
The W3C AI Agent Protocol Community Group’s Agent Identity and HTTP Authentication document makes the distinction explicit: successful authentication “does not grant access to any resource.” The service must still evaluate its own authorization policy. That separation matters when an agent has a valid identity but asks for an action outside the authority delegated to it.
Think of delegation as a verifiable chain, not a shared agent password: a principal grants limited authority; an agent authenticates as itself; an identity or authorization service issues or validates a credential carrying relevant context; and the destination service checks the credential and its own rules before acting. If an agent passes work to another agent, the system should preserve enough identity and authority context for the next service to assess the request rather than treating the handoff as a fresh, unexplained permission.
One user-delegated example: Microsoft Entra’s OAuth OBO flow
OAuth’s On-Behalf-Of (OBO) flow is one implementation pattern, not a universal agent-delegation protocol. Microsoft’s Entra documentation describes a flow in which an agent acts for a signed-in user and exchanges credentials for a token intended for a downstream resource.
- The user signs in. A client application authenticates the user and obtains a user access token.
- The client calls the agent identity blueprint. It sends the user token so the agent can act on the user’s behalf.
- The blueprint authenticates itself. Using its configured credential, it obtains a token used to represent the child agent identity in the exchange.
- The agent requests a downstream token. It presents the user assertion together with its agent credential in an OBO token exchange for the downstream resource.
- The identity provider validates the exchange. In Microsoft’s documented flow, the user assertion must be addressed to the agent identity blueprint; a token for a different audience is rejected. After validation, the provider returns a token for the requested resource scope.
- The agent calls the resource. The downstream service evaluates the resource token and its own authorization policy before performing the operation.
Audience answers which recipient a token is intended for; scope describes the permitted access requested or represented for a resource. Those constraints are not interchangeable: a token meant for the wrong audience should not be accepted simply because it contains plausible user or agent information.
Microsoft distinguishes this signed-in-user pattern from autonomous app-only operation. In its setup guidance, Microsoft prefers managed identities for credentials, warns against using client secrets in production for agent identity blueprints, and recommends its approved SDKs, noting that manual implementation is complex and error-prone. Those are Microsoft’s recommendations for its Entra implementation, not requirements imposed by OAuth generally.
How the main approaches differ
OAuth token exchange, workload identity and DID-based signed requests address different parts of the identity problem. They should not be treated as interchangeable proofs of the same authority.
| Approach | What it identifies or conveys | Trust boundary and policy | Status and limits |
|---|---|---|---|
| OAuth token exchange / OBO | RFC 8693 defines exchanging a subject token for another token. An OBO implementation can carry user-delegated context to a downstream resource. | Typically relies on an identity provider and the resource’s token-validation and authorization policies. Audience and scope constrain where and how a token is used. | RFC 8693 is a published IETF RFC (October 2015). It is a general mechanism, not a complete definition of every agent chain’s meaning or policy. Microsoft’s OBO flow is vendor-specific guidance. |
| Workload identity | Can identify a running service or agent workload, for example through SPIFFE/SPIRE identity issuance and management. | Trust depends on the workload identity system and its issuing environment. A workload identity by itself does not establish what user authority was delegated or what action is allowed. | NIST NCCoE’s February 2026 concept paper lists SPIFFE/SPIRE among approaches under consideration. The paper describes an initial enterprise-focused effort, not a completed deployment profile. |
| DID-based signed HTTP request | The W3C Community Group document describes resolving a DID, checking an authorized key, and verifying a signed HTTP request. | The verifier needs to trust the DID resolution and key relationship, validate request freshness, and separately apply its own authorization policy. | Agent Identity and HTTP Authentication is a W3C Community Group document, not a W3C Standard or a document on the W3C Standards Track. |
| Agent-specific protocol proposal | The IETF Agent Identity Protocol (AIP) Internet-Draft describes agent identity, a principal/delegation chain and capability data; it says it can sit beneath MCP’s tool-authorization flow. | Adoption would depend on how implementations validate the chain, interpret capabilities, manage keys and enforce local policy. | The cited AIP document is an Internet-Draft, not a completed IETF standard. Drafts can change, and support should be checked against the revision and profile an implementation actually uses. |
A separate paper, Authenticated Delegation and Authorized AI Agents, proposes extending OAuth and OpenID Connect with agent-specific credentials and metadata to make delegation auditable. It is a research proposal, not an adopted protocol standard.
Status labels matter: RFC 8693 is a published RFC; Microsoft’s materials document a vendor implementation; NIST’s paper is a concept paper; AIP is an Internet-Draft; and the W3C document is a Community Group document. A document that explains a protocol is not automatically a standard, an interoperable profile or evidence that products support it.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Security checks to require in an implementation
Authenticate the agent, not just the person
The receiver needs to know which agent identity or workload made the call as well as whose authority the agent is using. A user token alone may show user context, but it need not identify the particular agent instance responsible for an action. Microsoft’s OBO guidance and the AIP draft address agent identity alongside principal context.
Limit tokens to the right audience, resource and operation
Use credentials intended for the receiving service, with only the authority needed for the task. Verify audience and scope rather than assuming that a valid token is valid everywhere. Microsoft’s documented rejection of an assertion addressed to the wrong audience illustrates why recipient constraints matter.
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The service receiving a request should decide whether this identity, acting with this delegation context, may perform this operation on this resource. Authentication proves something about the caller; it does not replace policy evaluation. This remains true for a correctly signed DID-based request or a token issued through a trusted identity provider.
Protect credentials and rely on maintained implementations
Keep agent credentials out of prompts, logs and unprotected configuration. Use a credential lifecycle that supports secure issuance, storage, rotation and removal. For Microsoft’s Entra setup, the documented guidance prefers managed identities, discourages production client secrets for agent identity blueprints, and recommends approved SDKs rather than hand-built protocol exchanges.
Handle expiry, replay and revocation
A signature can be authentic and still be unsafe to accept if it is stale or replayed. The W3C Community Group document describes signature time windows and nonce/replay-cache guidance. Systems should also define how credentials and delegated authority are revoked, and how quickly downstream services learn about revocation. The AIP draft discusses revocation, but identity controls do not prevent prompt injection itself; they constrain identity and authority, not the content or intent of every instruction an agent receives.
Questions to answer before trusting an agent handoff
- Who issued the agent’s identity, and what does that identity identify: a user, an agent, a workload or some combination?
- Who authorized the agent, and can the receiver verify the relevant delegation chain rather than relying on an unsupported assertion?
- What exactly can the credential authorize, for which resource and which operation?
- Does the receiving service independently apply its authorization policy?
- How are credential expiry, replay attempts, key changes and revocation handled?
- Which protocol revision and implementation profile are in use, and do both sides actually support it?
NIST NCCoE’s February 2026 concept paper lists OAuth, OIDC, SPIFFE/SPIRE, SCIM and NGAC among the standards and practices its project is considering, while seeking practical guidance and feedback. That is useful context for enterprise identity work, but it is not a finished deployment profile. For any approach, assess the trust roots, key lifecycle, policy semantics, revocation behavior and cross-organization interoperability before relying on it.
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