Four properties of every agent
- Its own identity. Substrait issues each agent a scoped, revocable identity. An agent never uses its owner’s standing credentials.
- Narrower than its owner. An agent’s authority is the smaller of its owner’s groups and what the agent was granted. Everything else is denied.
- A record of whom it acted for. Every action reads “this agent, acting for this person”. One accountable person stands behind every action.
- A switch on the identity. Revoking the identity stops the agent at once.
Checked as it acts
An app’s reach is known before it goes live; an agent’s is decided at runtime. Substrait therefore checks each action an agent takes, at the moment it takes it. That matters because content an agent reads, such as an email or a supplier’s document, can try to redirect it.
Who may operate agents
Operating an agent is a capability your admins grant to a person. The agent itself holds no seat.
How agents ask people
When an agent needs a human decision, it asks through Substrait’s communications centre. The right person answers from the channel they chose.