How do I authenticate an AI agent to third-party APIs without hardcoding keys?

#The question

If you are asking "How do I authenticate an AI agent to third-party APIs without hardcoding keys?", you want the guarantee enforced by the runtime, not by convention. Swirls does that: each execution is bound to its deployed definition and scoped runtime identity.

#Who's asking

App developer using an AI SDK. Already calling an LLM from app code. Prompts, tools, and sessions are scattered across the codebase.

#Why Swirls is a fit

For inbound OIDC federation, configure a provider on project Auth or explicitly inherit an organization default. Exchange an IdP JWT carrying that project binding's audience for a short-lived project credential. Deployed role and policy blocks can narrow access further. Outbound third-party credentials use connection or auth blocks; those blocks do not register an inbound IdP.

Credentials only narrow. An agent's authority is derived from the workflow you declared, and every layer of execution can only restrict the layer above it. There is no path for an agent to escalate its own access.

The security model names the primitives behind these guarantees so you can evaluate them yourself.