authority-runtime 0.4.0

IAM + Context Control Plane for AI Agents — cryptographic policy enforcement with Ed25519 signed envelopes

Authority Runtime

Cryptographic IAM for AI agents -- scoped, signed, time-limited permissions with a tamper-evident audit trail.

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The Problem

AI agents operate with all-or-nothing permissions. If an agent has an API key, it can do anything with that credential. Traditional auth (OAuth, RBAC, JWT) assumes a human clicked a button -- agents don't click buttons.

Authority Runtime creates cryptographically signed permission envelopes that scope exactly what an agent can do, enforced at runtime, with a complete audit trail.

Parent Envelope                    Child Envelope
|- scopes: [read, write, delete]   |- scopes: [read]        <- narrowed
|- context: [user, email, history] |- context: [email]      <- narrowed
|- ttl: 10 minutes                 |- ttl: 5 minutes        <- narrowed
'- signature: Ed25519(...)         '- signature: Ed25519(...)

The child cannot exceed the parent. Cryptographically enforced.

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Install

pip install authority-runtime

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Quick Start

from authority_runtime import generate_key_pair, create_simple_envelope, check_envelope

# Generate Ed25519 identity
private_key, public_key = generate_key_pair()

# Create a scoped, signed, time-limited envelope
envelope = create_simple_envelope(
    agent_id="my-agent",
    scopes=["read:users", "write:users"],
    private_key=private_key,
)

# Verify access -- passes
check_envelope(envelope, public_key, required_scope="read:users")

# Verify access -- raises PermissionDenied
check_envelope(envelope, public_key, required_scope="delete:users")

See docs/QUICKSTART.md for more examples including EnforcedTool runtime blocking and HTML compliance reports.

Zero-dependency quickstart (no API key, no network)

For evaluation, CI, and offline work, pair MemoryBackend with FakeCompiler to exercise the full intent → compiled scopes → signed envelope → access check loop without any LLM provider:

pip install authority-runtime
python examples/quickstart_memory.py

FakeCompiler is a deterministic, rule-based implementation of LLMCompiler — it maps keywords in the intent to scopes that must already be in the parent's authority, with the same subset-enforcement guarantees as the OpenAI/Anthropic compilers. Use it as the default compiler in tests and CI.

Pluggable backends

authority_runtime.backends.Backend is a runtime_checkable Protocol. MemoryBackend and SlosBackend implement it; third parties can ship their own (e.g. a ConductorOne Baton adapter) by implementing the seven methods and registering an entry point:

# pyproject.toml of the adapter package
[project.entry-points."authority_runtime.backends"]
baton = "carryall_baton.backend:BatonBackend"

Load a backend from a config file:

{
  "backend": "baton",
  "init": { "c1z_path": "./sync.c1z" }
}

export CARRYALL_SLOS_CONFIG=./backend.json

from authority_runtime.backends import load_backend
backend = load_backend()  # honors CARRYALL_SLOS_CONFIG, defaults to MemoryBackend

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What It Does

1. Scope -- Define exactly which tools and data an agent can access
2. Sign -- Ed25519 signatures make permissions tamper-proof
3. Expire -- TTLs ensure permissions don't persist forever
4. Enforce -- EnforcedTool blocks unauthorized actions at runtime
5. Audit -- Every action logged with cryptographic proof
6. Verify -- SHA-256 hash chain on audit trail detects tampering and deletions

Key Features

• YAML policy engine -- define agent permissions in declarative YAML
• Constraint enforcement -- require_purpose, denied_resources, max_records, require_approval
• Wildcard scope matching -- vault:*:read matches vault:finance:read
• HTML compliance reports -- negative attestation ("agent never accessed X")
• Tamper-evident audit trail -- SHA-256 hash chain, carryall audit --verify
• Schema migrations -- versioned, with automatic backup
• MCP server -- HTTP and stdio transports with Bearer auth + rate limiting
• LangGraph integration -- graph-based agents with automatic permission narrowing

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CLI

carryall init                          # Initialize ~/.carryall/
carryall keys generate --agent-id bot  # Generate Ed25519 keypair
carryall mcp serve --transport http    # Start MCP server
carryall audit query                   # Query audit trail
carryall audit --verify                # Verify hash chain integrity
carryall compliance report             # Generate HTML compliance report
carryall policy validate policy.yaml   # Validate YAML policy
carryall db status                     # Check database + migrations

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Edtech FERPA Demo

A complete multi-agent demo showing FERPA compliance:

git clone https://github.com/tronmongoose/carryall-edtech-pilot.git
cd carryall-edtech-pilot
pip install authority-runtime
python -m demo.run

Demonstrates: agent identity, least privilege, access denial, negative attestation, compliance export. No API keys needed.

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Architecture

Agent Request
    |
    v
Root Envelope (Ed25519 signed, scoped, time-bounded)
    |
    v
Policy Engine (YAML policies, constraints, scope matching)
    |
    v
EnforcedTool (validates signature, checks TTL, verifies scope)
    |
    v
Audit Trail (SQLite, hash chain, compliance export)

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Design Constraints

1. Envelopes are immutable -- create new ones, don't modify existing
2. Children subset Parents -- authority only narrows, never expands
3. TTLs only decrease -- child can't outlive parent (60s-24h range)
4. Signatures are mandatory -- no unsigned envelopes
5. Enforcement is cryptographic -- can't bypass without private key

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Documentation

Doc	Description
Getting Started	5-minute tutorial with 3 progressive examples
Deployment	Local, Docker Compose, and Kubernetes
Configuration	Environment variables, YAML policies, logging
Changelog	Release history
Security	Vulnerability reporting + architecture
Contributing	Development setup + PR process

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Test Suite

182 tests across 15 test files covering envelope operations, scope matching, constraint enforcement, policy engine, compliance reports, hash chain integrity, schema migrations, MCP auth, and structured logging.

pytest            # Run all tests
pytest -v -x      # Verbose, stop on first failure

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License

Business Source License 1.1 - See LICENSE. Converts to Apache 2.0 after 4 years.