draft-klrc-aiagent-auth-03

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Internet-Draft<br>AI-Auth<br>July 2026

Kasselman, et al.<br>Expires 7 January 2027<br>[Page]

Workgroup:<br>Network Working Group<br>Internet-Draft:<br>draft-klrc-aiagent-auth-03<br>Published:

6 July 2026

Intended Status:<br>Informational<br>Expires:<br>7 January 2027<br>Authors:

P. Kasselman

Defakto Security

J. Lombardo

AWS

Y. Rosomakho

Zscaler

B. Campbell

Ping Identity

N. Steele

OpenAI

A. Parecki

Okta

AI Agent Authentication and Authorization

Abstract

This document proposes best practices for authentication and authorization of AI agent interactions. It leverages existing standards such as the Workload Identity in Multi-System Environments (WIMSE) architecture and OAuth 2.0 family of specifications. Rather than defining new protocols, this document describes how existing and widely deployed standards can be applied or extended to establish agent authentication and authorization. By doing so, it aims to provide a framework within which to use existing standards, identify gaps and guide future standardization efforts for agent authentication and authorization.¶

About This Document

This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.¶

The latest revision of this draft can be found at https://PieterKas.github.io/agent2agent-auth-framework/draft-klrc-aiagent-auth.html.<br>Status information for this document may be found at https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-klrc-aiagent-auth/.¶

Source for this draft and an issue tracker can be found at<br>https://github.com/PieterKas/agent2agent-auth-framework.¶

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the<br>provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.¶

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task<br>Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working<br>documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is<br>at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.¶

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months<br>and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any<br>time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference<br>material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."¶

This Internet-Draft will expire on 7 January 2027.¶

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the<br>document authors. All rights reserved.¶

This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal<br>Provisions Relating to IETF Documents<br>(https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of<br>publication of this document. Please review these documents<br>carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with<br>respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this<br>document must include Revised BSD License text as described in<br>Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without<br>warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.¶

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

The rapid emergence of AI agents as autonomous workloads has sparked considerable innovation in authentication and authorization approaches. However, many of these efforts develop solutions in isolation, often reinventing existing mechanisms unaware of applicable prior art. This fragmentation risks creating incompatible implementations, duplicated development effort, and missed opportunities to leverage decades of established identity and authorization standards.¶

This document aims to help close that gap by providing a comprehensive model demonstrating how existing, well-established standards and some emergent specifications can be composed and applied to solve agent authentication and authorization challenges. Rather than proposing new protocols, this work focuses on integrating proven standards into a coherent framework tailored to the specific requirements of AI agent workloads.¶

By doing so, this document serves two complementary goals:¶

Consolidation of prior art : It establishes a baseline by showing how existing standards address the core identity, authentication, authorization, monitoring and observability needs of agent-based systems. Implementers and standards developers can reference this framework to avoid redundant work and ensure interoperability.¶

Foundation for future work : As the agent ecosystem matures, having such a framework aids in identifying gaps and clarifies where extensions or profiles of existing standards are needed. This provides a foundation for more focused standardization efforts in areas needing novel work rather than variations of existing approaches.¶

2. Document Status

This document profiles existing standards and emerging specifications from the IETF, CNCF, and OpenID Foundation, as well as third-party protocols and mechanisms, for the AI agent use case. It defines best current practices for combining these and identifies new requirements specific to agent authentication and authorization.¶

3. Conventions and Definitions

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL...