Security Architecture
Zero-Trust Credential Injection: Why Agents Must Never Hold API Keys
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By Taqi Tajwar Akib
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Published October 03, 2026
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5 min read
Autonomous AI agents operate in non-deterministic environments: they read external webpages, execute shell commands, parse untrusted JSON, and output conversational responses. Placing production API credentials directly into agent environment variables or prompt context creates catastrophic leakage vectors.
Server-Side Credential Injection
olywork solves credential leakage by isolating all API secrets behind an authenticated, encrypted proxy layer. Agents receive only a scoped team token with strict role and budget boundaries.
POST https://registry.olywork.com/call/stripe/v1/customers
Authorization: Bearer oly_team_scoped_token
POST https://api.stripe.com/v1/customers
Authorization: Bearer sk_live_actual_production_key
Hardened Defenses
- Zero Prompt Leakage: Because the LLM never sees the secret in prompt context or environment variables, prompt injection attacks cannot exfiltrate credentials.
- Hardened SSRF Validation: Every proxied URL is validated against private subnet ranges (RFC 1918, link-local, loopback, and cloud metadata endpoints) before network socket connection.
- BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) Isolation: Team-owned credentials are encrypted with tenant-isolated Fernet keys and bypass all platform billing meters.
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Taqi Tajwar Akib
Founder at olywork. Working on deterministic infrastructure, API economics, and orchestration primitives for AI agents.