JWTs and OAuth suck for AI agents. Meet Wafers(positiveblue.substack.com)
positiveblue.substack.com
JWTs and OAuth suck for AI agents. Meet Wafers
https://positiveblue.substack.com/p/ai-agents-broke-auth-wafers-fix-it
5 comments
Adoption is definitely the hardest "cryptographic" problem :D
You can think about this as a new auth token to add in your stack. It does not need to grow and take over the world overnight. We have seen how hard it is to change the status quo + how much it can adapt to new ideas (ex: SQL vs NoSQL)
For now I would imagine teams who need more flexibility in their auth stack to adopt this for new API
You can think about this as a new auth token to add in your stack. It does not need to grow and take over the world overnight. We have seen how hard it is to change the status quo + how much it can adapt to new ideas (ex: SQL vs NoSQL)
For now I would imagine teams who need more flexibility in their auth stack to adopt this for new API
TLDR: JWTs say who you are. Wafers say who this request is on behalf of and exactly what it can do.
It looks very similar to Macaroons
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39204314
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43499783
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25233311
What are the differences?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39204314
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43499783
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25233311
What are the differences?
Wafers are definitely inspired by Macaroons, but the core difference is that delegation is tied to identity.
In Macaroons, anyone who holds the token can tack on caveats.
In Wafers, only the current holder can extend it, and they can explicitly name the next holder by public key.
That gives you a verifiable chain of custody instead of an unanchored blob.
In Macaroons, anyone who holds the token can tack on caveats.
In Wafers, only the current holder can extend it, and they can explicitly name the next holder by public key.
That gives you a verifiable chain of custody instead of an unanchored blob.
curious if this can somehow slot into oauth too, or this is impossible? I've been thinking about oauth proxies that alter the oauth scopes into more fine-grained ones, working on this. maybe this is the key to adoption.