agentic-authz

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Fine-grained authorization for AI agents using OpenFGA.

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> [!NOTE]
> `agentic-authz` is prior systems work, not my current product lane.
> I keep it public as an OSS reference for OpenFGA-style policy boundaries below AI agent workflows.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> The useful pattern here is authorizing tool access before execution.
> Agents should not inherit broad human permissions just because they act on a human’s behalf.

> [!WARNING]
> This repo is a reference demo. It is not a drop-in authorization system for production without security review, policy design, and operational hardening.

# Agentic AuthZ Demo

**Fine-grained authorization for AI agents using OpenFGA.**

AI agents are getting access to production systems - databases, APIs, file systems. But who decides what they can do? Traditional RBAC wasn't designed for autonomous agents that make decisions without human approval.

This demo shows how to implement **Relationship-Based Access Control (ReBAC)** for AI agents using OpenFGA, with three levels of authorization:

1. **Team Level** - Which teams can use which tool categories
2. **Project Level** - Which projects have access to which resources  
3. **Operation Level** - Fine-grained control over destructive operations

## Quick Start

```bash
# Start services and seed data
make setup

# Run the demo
make demo

# Or use the interactive script
./scripts/demo.sh
```

## Why This Matters

| Problem | Solution |
|---------|----------|
| Agent has same permissions as user | Fine-grained, context-aware permissions |
| Prompt injection → data exfiltration | Blast radius contained by project scope |
| No audit trail for agent actions | Every authorization decision logged |
| "All or nothing" tool access | Operation-level restrictions |

## Architecture

```
┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐     ┌─────────────────┐
│   AI Agent      │────▶│   Gateway       │────▶│   OpenFGA       │
│   (Claude/GPT)  │     │   (Go)          │     │   (AuthZ)       │
└─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘     └─────────────────┘
                               │
                               ▼
                        ┌─────────────────┐
                        │   MCP Tools     │
                        │   (Mock/Real)   │
                        └─────────────────┘
```

## Authorization Model

Three levels of access control:

### 1. Team Level
Teams are assigned to tool categories.

| Team | Code Tools | Communication | Data Tools | Infrastructure |
|------|------------|---------------|------------|----------------|
| Engineering | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Marketing | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| DevOps | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

### 2. Project Level
Projects have specific tool access.

| Project | GitHub | Slack | Postgres | Filesystem |
|---------|--------|-------|----------|------------|
| auth-service | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| landing-page | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ |
| infrastructure | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

### 3. Operation Level
Specific operations are restricted to certain roles.

| Operation | Allowed Roles |
|-----------|---------------|
| `github:delete_repo` | Team Leads only |
| `postgres:delete` | Team Leads only |

## Demo Scenarios

| # | Scenario | User | Tool | Expected |
|---|----------|------|------|----------|
| 1 | Engineering → GitHub | Alice (lead) | `github:create_pr` | ✅ Allowed |
| 2 | Marketing → GitHub | Bob (lead) | `github:create_pr` | ❌ Denied |
| 3 | auth-service → Postgres | Alice | `postgres:query` | ✅ Allowed |
| 4 | landing-page → Postgres | Bob | `postgres:query` | ❌ Denied |
| 5 | Member → delete_repo | Charlie | `github:delete_repo` | ❌ Denied |
| 6 | Lead → delete_repo | Alice | `github:delete_repo` | ✅ Allowed |

## Services

| Service | Port | Description |
|---------|------|-------------|
| Demo UI | 3002 | Interactive demo interface |
| Admin UI | 3001 | Permission management dashboard |
| OpenFGA Playground | 3000 | OpenFGA visual explorer |
| Gateway API | 9000 | Authorization gateway |
| OpenFGA API | 8080 | OpenFGA HTTP API |

## Development

```bash
# Install dependencies
make install-deps

# Start OpenFGA
make setup-openfga

# Run gateway in mock mode
make dev-gateway

# Run Demo UI
make dev-demo

# Run Admin UI
make dev-admin
```

## API Endpoints

### Check Authorization
```bash
curl -X POST http://localhost:9000/v1/tools/call \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "tool": "github",
    "operation": "create_pr",
    "params": {"title": "My PR"},
    "context": {
      "user": "alice",
      "project": "auth-service",
      "team": "engineering"
    }
  }'
```

### List Tools
```bash
curl http://localhost:9000/v1/tools
```

### View Audit Log
```bash
curl http://localhost:9000/v1/audit
```

### List Demo Scenarios
```bash
curl http://localhost:9000/v1/demo/scenarios
```

## Project Structure

```
agentic-authz/
├── gateway/              # Go authorization gateway
│   ├── cmd/gateway/      # Main entry point
│   └── internal/         # Internal packages
│       ├── authz/        # OpenFGA client
│       ├── config/       # Configuration
│       ├── handler/      # HTTP handlers
│       └── mcp/          # MCP proxy
├── demo-ui/              # Next.js demo interface
├── admin-ui/             # Next.js admin dashboard
├── openfga/              # Authorization model
│   ├── model.fga         # FGA DSL model
│   ├── model.json        # JSON model for API
│   └── tuples.json       # Seed data
├── scripts/              # Demo scripts
├── docker-compose.yml    # Service orchestration
└── Makefile              # Build commands
```

## OpenFGA Model

The authorization model uses OpenFGA's DSL:

```fga
type tool
  relations
    define category: [tool_category]
    define allowed_team: [team]
    define can_use: member from allowed_team or can_use from category

type tool_operation
  relations
    define tool: [tool]
    define allowed_role: [user]
    define can_execute: allowed_role or can_use from tool
```

## Make Commands

```bash
make help           # Show all commands
make setup          # Full setup
make demo           # Run all demo scenarios
make audit          # View audit log
make tools          # List available tools
make users          # List demo users
make projects       # List demo projects
make clean          # Stop and clean up
```

## The Security Case for Agent Authorization

### The Problem

```
User: "Summarize our Q4 sales data"
Agent: *has database access*
Agent: SELECT * FROM users; DROP TABLE users;--
```

Without fine-grained authorization, a compromised or manipulated agent can:
- Access data outside its task scope
- Perform destructive operations
- Pivot between systems
- Exfiltrate sensitive information

### The Solution

```
User: "Summarize our Q4 sales data"
Agent: *requests database access*
Gateway: Check(user:alice, can_execute, tool_operation:postgres:query)
OpenFGA: ✅ ALLOWED (project:sales-dashboard has postgres access)
Agent: SELECT SUM(revenue) FROM sales WHERE quarter='Q4'
```

With this architecture:
- Every tool call is authorized
- Permissions are scoped to project context
- Destructive operations require elevated privileges
- All decisions are audited

## Real-World Use Case: Confidential AI Platforms

When AI coding agents work on security-critical codebases, the blast radius of a compromised or misdirected agent is much larger than in a typical project. This pattern applies directly to confidential computing stacks where certain components must never be touched by an agent.

**Example: Confidential AI inference platform (Intel TDX)**

A typical confidential AI stack has components where agent write access would be catastrophic:

| Component | Why it matters |
|-----------|---------------|
| `cvm/attestation-service/` | TDX quote generation and EKM validation logic |
| `cvm/auth-service/` | Bearer token auth and HMAC comparison |
| `cvm/cert-manager/` | TLS cert and EKM shared secret |

A developer running a frontend review agent should have no access to these components. With agentic-authz, this is expressed as the absence of tuples — no tuple written means no access, full stop.

```bash
# Grant the frontend review agent access to the frontend only
fga tuple write \
  '{"object":"repo:my-project/frontend","relation":"reader","user":"agent:frontend-review-agent"}'

# No tuples written for attestation-service, auth-service, cert-manager.
# The agent cannot read or write those components regardless of what it "decides."

# Verify
fga query check --user agent:frontend-review-agent \
  --relation reader --object repo:my-project/attestation-service
# { "allowed": false }
```

**Connecting attestation identity to authorization**

For platforms using attested TLS, the TEE's measurement (e.g. `app_compose_hash` from a TDX attestation report) can serve as the identity anchor in OpenFGA tuples:

```python
# After verifying the TEE attestation, extract the identity
tee_identity = report.tdx.app_compose_hash  # deterministic per deployment

allowed = await fga.check(
    user=f"tee:{tee_identity}",
    relation="can_invoke",
    object="service:inference-endpoint"
)
```

This gives confidential AI platforms a full authorization layer on top of their existing attestation stack: the aTLS layer handles authentication (who is connecting), OpenFGA handles authorization (what they can do).

---

## Resources

- [OpenFGA Documentation](https://openfga.dev/docs)
- [OpenFGA Playground](https://play.fga.dev)
- [Securing Agentic AI (Blog Post)](https://dev.to/siddhantkcode/securing-agentic-ai-authorization-patterns-for-autonomous-systems-3ajo)

## Author

Built by **Siddhant Khare** - OpenFGA Core Maintainer

- X: [@siddhant_K_code](https://x.com/siddhant_K_code)
- GitHub: [@Siddhant-K-code](https://github.com/Siddhant-K-code)
- LinkedIn: [Siddhant Khare](https://linkedin.com/in/siddhantkhare24)

*Helping teams implement secure AI agent architectures.*

## License

MIT

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