Intent-Bound
Authorization
A Control Primitive for Agentic Intelligence
As systems evolve from tools into autonomous agents—and toward agentic super-intelligence—authorization must govern intent, not merely identity or capability.
The Core Insight
IBA is not just a concept—it's part of a growing industry response to agentic system security
Strengths of the IBA Approach
🛡️ Mitigates Confused Deputy
Prevents agents from being tricked into using broad permissions for malicious sub-tasks.
📊 Superior Auditability
Logs show "Agent X accessed Database Y to fulfill User Intent Z"—far more useful for compliance.
🤖 LLM Alignment
LLMs operate on intents. Security layer speaks the same language as the AI.
🔒 Least Privilege on Steroids
Moves from configuration setting to dynamic, per-request reality.
⚡ Real-Time Protection
Continuous validation prevents scope creep during execution, not just at authorization.
🔄 Automatic Cleanup
No lingering permissions—authority dissolves when purpose is fulfilled.
Challenges & Solutions
Challenge: Intent Verification Problem
How do you prove intent? If an LLM generates the intent string and is compromised via prompt injection, it could lie about its intent.
Multi-layered verification: User signs intent cryptographically, behavioral analysis detects anomalies, ZKP attestation prevents forgery, and real-time monitoring catches drift.
Challenge: Complexity & Latency
Parsing intent, cryptographically binding it, and verifying at every hop adds overhead.
Caching verified intents, optimized cryptographic operations, edge verification, and parallel validation pipelines minimize latency impact.
Challenge: Intent Ambiguity
Defining boundaries is hard. Does "organize my travel" include "deleting old calendar invites"?
Explicit scope declarations, user confirmation for edge cases, machine-learned intent boundaries from behavioral patterns, and conservative defaults.
Canonical Use Cases
🤖 Autonomous AI Agents
Tool-using language models, long-running workflows, self-improving systems
🔗 Multi-Agent Coordination
Collaborative AI systems, distributed decision-making, agent-to-agent delegation
🧬 Recursive Self-Improvement
RSI systems governance, capability amplification bounds, optimization constraints
🏦 High-Risk Environments
Financial systems, healthcare automation, critical infrastructure
🤝 Human-AI Delegation
Delegated authority systems, supervised autonomy, explainable decision-making
⚖️ Regulated Domains
Compliance-driven authorization, auditable agency, provable purpose
What IBA Is NOT
IBA is authorization redesigned for agency.
The Future of Agentic Security
Join the conversation. Shape the standard. Build the future.
Autonomous systems require WHY.
Authorization without intent is blind trust.
Core Properties of IBA
Five foundational characteristics that define Intent-Bound Authorization
📝 Explicit Intention
Intent must be declared upfront in structured, parseable form—not inferred, not implicit, not post-hoc.
🔗 Purpose Binding
Authorization is cryptographically bound to declared intent. Actions outside that purpose are invalid by design.
🧠 Context Awareness
System understands semantic meaning, behavioral patterns, and situational factors when validating intent.
⚡ Real-Time Validation
Continuous intent alignment checking during execution—not just at authorization time.
⏱️ Automatic Revocation
Permissions dissolve immediately when intent is satisfied, violated, expires, or is manually revoked.
The Agentic Gap
Traditional authorization models are static. Agentic systems require dynamic, purpose-aware controls.
Decompose Goals
Break complex objectives into actionable sub-tasks without human guidance
Select Tools
Choose and combine capabilities dynamically based on context
Chain Actions
Execute sequences of operations across multiple systems
Adapt Plans
Modify strategies in real-time as conditions change
Act Autonomously
Operate without step-by-step human approval or oversight
When agents can do all this, authorization without intent becomes blind trust.
Why Existing Models Fail for Agents
Even advanced access control models like ABAC don't enforce purpose or intended outcome
🔐 RBAC (Role-Based)
What it says: "You are an Admin, you can delete users."
Problem: No context, no purpose, no limits on when or why.
⚖️ ABAC (Attribute-Based)
What it says: "You can delete users if it's between 9-5 PM and you are in the US."
Problem: Handles context like location/time, but NOT user intent or purpose.
🎫 OAuth Scopes
What it says: "App has permission to read your profile."
Problem: Broad, static scopes with no binding to specific use case.
🔑 Capability Tokens
What it says: "Bearer of this token can access resource X."
Problem: Possession-based, no semantic understanding of WHY.
IBA's Breakthrough:
"You can delete this specific user only because the customer requested an account closure, and this action is the direct fulfillment of that intent."
Intent Attestation with Zero-Knowledge Proofs
How service providers verify intent without exposing sensitive details
The Verification Challenge
How does a database prove that an agent's intent was actually authorized by the end-user? How do we prevent agents from fabricating intent claims?
Cryptographic Intent Binding
Intent declarations are cryptographically signed by the authorizing user, creating unforgeable proof of authorization.
Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKP)
Agents can prove they have valid intent authorization WITHOUT revealing private details to every microservice they touch.
Attestation Chains
Each service in the chain verifies intent attestation, creating an auditable trail without exposing sensitive data.
Delegated Intent Verification
Sub-agents can prove they're operating under a valid parent intent without accessing the full authorization scope.
Example: Privacy-Preserving Medical Records Access
An AI agent needs to retrieve your medical history to schedule an appointment. Using ZKP-based intent attestation, the agent can prove to the hospital database: "I have authorization to access records for scheduling purposes" without revealing your identity, the specific doctor, or appointment details to intermediate services.
User Intent vs Agent Behavior
IBA bridges human authorization with autonomous agent execution
👤 Human User Intent
User declares: "Schedule me a dentist appointment next week"
IBA binds authorization to:
- ✓ Access calendar (read/write)
- ✓ Search healthcare providers
- ✓ Book appointments
- ✗ Access medical records
- ✗ Change insurance
🤖 Autonomous Agent Behavior
Agent executes: Multi-step workflow across 5 services
IBA enforces:
- ✓ Every action traced to original intent
- ✓ Scope cannot exceed authorization
- ✓ Real-time validation at each step
- ✓ Automatic halt if drift detected
- ✓ Complete audit trail
Task-Scoped, Just-In-Time Permissions
Intent mandates are translated into least-privilege authorizations that agents can act on programmatically, with cryptographic audit trails to prevent scope creep. Permissions are granted just-in-time for specific tasks, then immediately revoked.
Industry Movement & Standards Context
IBA aligns with emerging trends in agentic system authorization
The security community is actively moving toward intent-based authorization, just-in-time permissions, and dynamic policies for agentic systems. Standards groups are proposing frameworks that bind permissions to intent and context at runtime rather than pre-granting broad scopes.
Contemporary Research
Intent tokens, delegation frameworks, and agent authorization are active research areas in IAM-for-agentic-AI space.
Standards Development
Proposals like AIDP (AI Data Protection) and runtime permission binding are being discussed in standards bodies.
Zero Trust Evolution
IBA extends Zero Trust principles to the semantic layer—verifying not just identity and device, but purpose and intent.
Industry Adoption
Watch Traditional Auth Fail
See Real Attacks. See Real Consequences.
Experience firsthand why traditional authorization models collapse under agentic AI, and how Intent-Bound Authorization stops the same attacks cold.
These Attacks Actually Happened
Every scenario below is based on real security breaches that cost billions. Traditional OAuth, RBAC, and capability-based systems failed to stop them.
Watch them play out. Then watch IBA block them.
Choose Your Attack Scenario
Appendix: Why Intent-Bound Authorization Beats OAuth for Autonomous Agents
OAuth and related access-control models were designed for deterministic, human-initiated software actions. They assume that once access is granted, subsequent behavior remains aligned with the original purpose.
This assumption breaks down for autonomous agents that can plan, adapt, delegate, and interact with other agents over time.
Key Architectural Differences
| Dimension | OAuth / RBAC / ABAC | Intent-Bound Authorization |
|---|---|---|
| Authorization Timing | Granted once at access time | Continuously validated at execution time |
| Purpose Awareness | None | Explicit, declared, and enforced |
| Drift Detection | Not possible | Native and automatic |
| Token Scope | Broad and often long-lived | Narrow, intent-scoped, self-expiring |
| Confused-Deputy Protection | Implicit and fragile | Explicit and enforced |
| Suitability for Agents | Low | High |
The Core Failure of OAuth in Agentic Systems
OAuth answers the question: “Is this caller allowed to access this resource?”
Autonomous agents require a different question to be enforced: “Is this action still being performed for the reason it was authorized?”
OAuth has no mechanism to express, bind, or validate purpose. As a result, it cannot prevent agent drift, task escalation, or emergent misuse once access is granted.
IBA as a Complement, Not a Replacement
Intent-Bound Authorization does not discard OAuth. It operates above it. OAuth may still handle identity and basic access, while IBA governs whether autonomous execution remains justified over time.
Together, they form a layered security model suitable for agentic systems: identity at the base, intent at the control plane.
The Security Layer for Autonomous Agency
Intent-Bound Authorization (IBA) cryptographically anchors AI actions to human intent. Check out our open-source implementation and MCP integration examples on GitHub.
View Project on GitHub