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Know your agent

Know your agent verification gates

Know your agent (KYA) is the practice of verifying an agent's authority to act before it executes. AffixIO returns a signed allow or deny at the policy gate, not a risk score, with Merkle audit for later review.

Category AI agents Updated 17 July 2026 Reading ~8 min
KYAPOLICY GATEML-DSA-65MCPALLOW/DENYMERKLE
AI agents sector Privacy sector All trends

Know your agent verification confirms an agent's authority to perform a consequential action, as a signed allow or deny before execution.

Field note. Agents without KYA gates look like shadow automation in your audit trail. Identify the agent, verify scope, then allow.

KYA as a boundary

Place AffixIO verify before tool calls, payments, and sensitive data retrieval. On deny, stop. On allow, proceed with proof metadata in the trace.

KYA pairs with MCP connector patterns and agent authorisation pages for concrete wiring.

Evidence for governance

EU AI Act style audit expectations and OWASP agentic guidance both push toward traceable controls. Signed outcomes are easier to show than prompt logs alone.

This is architectural alignment, not a certification claim.

Integration notes for know-your-agent verification

Wire AffixIO verify immediately before the boundary where know-your-agent verification applies: checkout authorisation, MCP tool invocation, age gate, or offline scan. Issue proofs when policy is satisfied. Present at the edge. Gate on signed allow or deny.

Train support on deny retrieval: Merkle ref lookup should not require engineering access. Document which circuit version was active when the proof was issued.

Protocol blind spot

Agents act before policy is checked

Many stacks authenticate a runtime, then let prompts decide what happens next. That is not a defensible authorisation model.

Prompt-as-policy

Natural language instructions are not cryptographic evidence.

Tool sprawl

Each new integration widens blast radius without a binary gate.

Human IAM mismatch

People-centric reviews miss machine-speed actors.

Verifier edge

Know-your-agent gates before tools or payments run

KYA flows for autonomous agents mirror KYC but for non-human actors. Verify agent identity and policy scope at the boundary before tool calls or payment authorisation proceed.

  1. List consequential actions

    Tools, pay, data.

  2. Issue agent eligibility

    Policy-bound proofs.

  3. Verify pre-action

    Allow or deny.

  4. Retain Merkle refs

    For governance review.

Policy review

Readiness checks for know-your-agent verification

  • Define KYA policy per agent class.
  • Gate MCP high-risk tools.
  • Remove prompt-only controls as sole defence.
  • Store audit refs on agent run records.
  • Review AI agents sector guidance.

Straight answers

Questions on know-your-agent verification

What is KYA?

Verifying an agent's authority to act before it executes. AffixIO returns a signed outcome, not a risk score.

Is KYA the same as KYC?

No. KYC is about people and documents. KYA is about software actors and policy.

Does AffixIO store prompts?

No. Verifier receives outcome and proof metadata by default.

Where next?

/sectors/ai-agents and /agent-authorisation/

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Pages that support know-your-agent verification

AI agents

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Build know-your-agent verify flows

Exercise agent identity proofs in sandbox, then wire verify one hop before tool and payment hooks.

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