In a move that signals the maturing of enterprise AI agent infrastructure, Jan, a co-author of the Agentic Identity Broker (AIB), has released an MIT-licensed OAuth2 broker into the Zalando Incubator. The project, posted to Hacker News on November 6, 2026, addresses the critical security gap of granting AI agents scoped, revocable access to Model Context Protocol (MCP) services without compromising user control. This isn't just another wrapper; it’s a dedicated identity layer designed to bridge distinct OAuth2 infrastructures and manage complex delegation chains in corporate environments.

The Problem: OAuth in the Age of Agents

Current MCP server frameworks like FastMCP require developers to implement full OAuth2.1 ceremonies for every deployed server. This creates a maintenance nightmare where each server needs its own secure storage and authorization logic. The AIB solves this by offloading the authentication burden from both the agent and the MCP server creators. By deploying the broker within the call path via gateways like Agentgateway, it allows agents to interact with hundreds of MCP servers through a single, secure channel, effectively dumbing down server development to just providing tools.

Key Features: Security and Consent

The broker provides a rich consent experience, allowing users to grant granular permissions across major services like Google, GitHub, Databricks, and Linear. It features a security-first design with sensitive value redaction, command injection prevention, and a fail-closed architecture. For compliance-heavy industries, the AIB includes comprehensive structured JSON audit logging. It also supports delegation chains without user presence, enabling privileged clients like Slack or Google Chat bridges to assume a user's session for specific tasks, provided the broker trusts the independent machine identities.

Architecture and Roadmap

The Agentic Identity Broker acts as a secure token vault, managing agent registration, principal authentication, and session management. It handles OAuth2 ceremonies, token vaulting, and token translation transparently, allowing centralized tool authorization. The project is currently in active development and used in production internally by Zalando for several MCP servers. The roadmap includes formalizing token exchange for agent-to-agent calls, implementing intent-based authorization, and creating user-facing activity logs. The team emphasizes sound engineering practices over convenience, leveraging decades of experience in the identity space to build multiple OIDC and OAuth2 providers.

Key Takeaways

  • The Agentic Identity Broker offloads OAuth2.1 ceremony burdens from MCP servers, allowing developers to focus solely on providing tools.
  • It supports delegation chains without user presence, enabling privileged clients like Slack or Google Chat bridges to assume user sessions securely.
  • The project includes comprehensive structured JSON audit logging and a fail-closed security architecture, making it suitable for compliance-heavy environments.

The Bottom Line

This is the infrastructure glue we’ve been waiting for. If you’re building agents that touch real SaaS data, stop rolling your own auth and let the broker handle the delegation chain.