Give every agent its own identity, its own allowlists, and an audit of every call it makes — so autonomy stays accountable.
The problem
The moment an agent can call a model on its own, it becomes an identity making decisions at machine speed. Without scoped credentials and a log, one prompt-injected agent is an incident with no trail.
// The pattern
Each agent gets its own virtual key, its own model and tool allowlist, and its own rate limits. Read-only tool access bounds the blast radius; the guardrail layer inspects every prompt and response; and every call the agent makes is written to the same append-only log as everything else.
// 01 · Scoped identity
Per-key credentials mean an agent touches only the models and tools you allowed — and you can revoke one without disturbing the rest.
// 02 · Bounded tools
Tool access starts read-only, so an injected instruction can’t quietly turn into a write.
// 03 · A full record
Every agent call is logged and joined by request ID — you can reconstruct exactly what an agent did, and when.
What stays with you
Optimal engineers the guardrails and the identity plane. Your agents, your business logic, and your risk decisions stay yours.
