Agent identity
The account an agent acts under, which sets who it appears as and whose permissions it uses.
There are three patterns. It uses your login and appears as you. It acts for you under its own name, with some of your permissions. Or it has its own identity and permissions, granted by an admin. The pattern decides what the logs show, what it can access, and how IT can switch it off. It is a separate question from how autonomous the agent is.
Also called
- Non-human identity (NHI)
- Machine identity
Kinds
- Acts as itself An agent using its own identity and its own permission set to take actions.
- Acts as you An agent using your identity and permissions to take actions and appearing as you.
- Acts for you An agent that acts for you under its own identity, with a limited share of your permissions, so logs usually show both the agent and you.
Related
- Least privilege for AI A rule that an AI system or agent gets only the permissions it strictly needs for the task, and nothing more.
- Stack The shared AI infrastructure that every agent and harness in your company draws on, such as gateways, model access, data, evals, central identity and shared connectors.
- Kill switch A control that stops an agent or model at once.
How it connects
- Agent gateway reads Agent identity
- Personal agent acts with your access Agent identity