Authorization & Skill Permission Tokens

AgentVault employs a strict explicit-deny authorization architecture. By default, an enrolled agent cannot access any external system or perform destructive actions. Every privileged operation requires a grant.

Capability Access Grants

To perform privileged actions, agents must hold Capability Access Grants, represented cryptographically as Skill Permission Tokens (SPTs).

SPT Structure

SPTs are signed JWTs that define exact functional boundaries:

{
  "iss": "agentvault",
  "sub": "did:hub:cortina",
  "aud": "api.agentvault.chat",
  "iat": 1710720000,
  "exp": 1711324800,
  "grants": {
    "capabilities": ["file_read", "api_call", "web_search"],
    "forbidden": ["process_spawn", "network_raw", "file_delete"],
    "rate_limits": {
      "api_call": { "max": 100, "window": "1h" },
      "web_search": { "max": 50, "window": "1h" }
    }
  },
  "trust_floor": 0.6,
  "policy_binding": "policy_uuid"
}

Grant Lifecycle

Request

Agent or owner requests a capability grant via the dashboard or API.

Policy Evaluation

The 5-stage policy pipeline evaluates the request against active policies.

Issuance

If approved, an SPT is signed by the platform and bound to the agent’s DID.

Enforcement

Every skill invocation is checked against active SPTs before execution.

Revocation

SPTs can be manually revoked or auto-revoked when trust scores drop below trust_floor.

Automatic Revocation

SPTs are automatically revoked when:

Trust score drops below the SPT’s trust_floor threshold
Anomaly detected — behavioral drift triggers a PSI alert above 0.25
Policy violation — the agent attempts a forbidden operation
Expiration — the SPT’s exp claim passes

Automatic revocation is immediate. The agent must request a new grant after the underlying issue is resolved.

Policy Bindings

SPTs can be bound to specific policies for fine-grained control:

# Bind a policy to an agent
POST /api/v1/policy-bindings
{
  "policy_id": "policy_uuid",
  "agent_id": "agent_uuid",
  "skill_name": "web_search",
  "active": true
}

# List active bindings
GET /api/v1/policy-bindings/{agent_id}

# Remove a binding
DELETE /api/v1/policy-bindings/{binding_id}

5-Stage Policy Pipeline

When a skill invocation occurs, the policy pipeline runs:

Parse — Extract action intent from the invocation request
Validate — Schema-validate the policy rules against the request
Enforce — Apply tool, model, and rate policies from active SPTs
Log — Emit an av.policy.evaluate telemetry span
Report — Aggregate policy metrics per agent and skill

Enforcement Scopes

Scope	Description	Example
Tool	Allow/deny specific tool invocations	Block `process_spawn`, allow `file_read`
Model	Restrict which LLM models the agent can use	Allow only `gpt-4` and `claude-3`
Rate	Throttle invocation frequency	Max 100 API calls per hour
Network	Control egress destinations	Only allow `api.example.com:443`
Custom	Agent-defined policy rules	Custom business logic checks

Violation Actions

Action	Behavior
Block	Deny the invocation, return structured error
Warn	Allow but log a warning and emit telemetry
Log	Silent logging — no agent-visible effect

Integration with SKILL.md

Skills can declare required policies in their agentVault frontmatter:

---
name: web-research
agentVault:
  certification: certified
  requiredPolicies:
    - "network: agentvault"
    - "rate: standard"
  runtime:
    capabilities:
      - web_search
      - api_call
    forbidden:
      - process_spawn
      - file_delete
  model:
    allowed:
      - gpt-4
      - claude-3-opus
    default: gpt-4
---

When a skill with requiredPolicies is invoked, the policy enforcer verifies that all required policies are bound and active before allowing execution.

MCP Policy Check

The agentvault_check_policy MCP tool allows agents to pre-flight policy checks before execution:

{
  "tool": "agentvault_check_policy",
  "input": {
    "skillName": "web-research",
    "toolName": "web_search",
    "model": "gpt-4"
  }
}
// Returns: { "allowed": true } or { "allowed": false, "violations": [...] }

Introduction & Core Concepts

Agent Identity & Cryptography

Secure Communications

Trust Scoring & Authorization

Agent Builder

Quality Control

Integrations

The AI Skill Marketplace

Observability & Audit Trails

Security & Compliance

API Reference

Authorization & SPTs

Authorization & Skill Permission Tokens

Capability Access Grants

SPT Structure

Grant Lifecycle

Automatic Revocation

Policy Bindings

5-Stage Policy Pipeline

Enforcement Scopes

Violation Actions

Integration with SKILL.md

MCP Policy Check

​Authorization & Skill Permission Tokens

​Capability Access Grants

​SPT Structure

​Grant Lifecycle

​Automatic Revocation

​Policy Bindings

​5-Stage Policy Pipeline

​Enforcement Scopes

​Violation Actions

​Integration with SKILL.md

​MCP Policy Check

Authorization & Skill Permission Tokens

Capability Access Grants

SPT Structure

Grant Lifecycle

Automatic Revocation

Policy Bindings

5-Stage Policy Pipeline

Enforcement Scopes

Violation Actions

Integration with SKILL.md

MCP Policy Check