Role-Based Access Control for AI Agents

Role-based access control (RBAC) assigns permissions to roles rather than individual agents. Agents are assigned one or more roles, and they inherit the permissions of those roles. This simplifies permission management because adding or removing capabilities means changing role assignments rather than editing individual agent policies.

Defining Roles

Start by identifying the distinct functions agents perform in your system. Common roles include:

• Reader: Can fetch data and search but cannot modify anything
• Writer: Can create and update records within a scoped domain
• Executor: Can invoke external tools and APIs
• Admin: Can modify policies, manage agent registrations, and access audit logs
• Auditor: Read-only access to all logs and receipts

Role-Permission Mapping

Each role maps to a set of allowed actions and resources:

roles:
  reader:
    allow:
      - action: "data.read"
      - action: "search.*"
  writer:
    allow:
      - action: "data.read"
      - action: "data.write"
        resources: ["assigned_domain/*"]
  executor:
    allow:
      - action: "tool.*"
        resources: ["approved_tools/*"]

Agent-Role Assignment

Assign roles to agents based on their function, not their identity. A research agent gets the reader role. A database agent gets the writer role. If an agent needs capabilities from multiple roles, assign multiple roles. The agent's effective permissions are the union of all assigned role permissions.

Least Privilege

Assign the minimum roles necessary for each agent to perform its function. A common mistake is assigning the executor role to agents that only need reader access because "it might need tools later." Start restrictive and add roles only when a concrete need arises.

Role Hierarchy

Roles can form a hierarchy where higher roles inherit permissions from lower roles. Admin inherits all permissions from executor, which inherits from writer, which inherits from reader. This reduces duplication but requires careful design to avoid unintended privilege accumulation.

RBAC in Authensor

Authensor's policy engine evaluates the principal's role on every action envelope. The requireRole() middleware in the control plane enforces role checks before policy evaluation begins. API keys are scoped to roles, ensuring that even the authentication layer respects role boundaries.

RBAC provides structure. Without it, permission management devolves into a per-agent exception list that nobody can audit.