Token Exchange defines how one security token is traded for another, with explicitly modelled delegation and impersonation. It carries actor_token and may_act semantics so a token can record that party A is acting on behalf of party B — the machinery an agentic system needs to answer who authorized an action.
OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange
OAuth 2.0 Token Exchange (RFC 8693) — Token Exchange defines how one security token is traded for another, with explicitly modelled delegation and impersonation. It carries actor_token and may_act semantics so a token can record that party A is acting on behalf of party B — the machinery an agentic system needs to answer who authorized an action.
- Delegation as a first-class concept -
actandmay_actclaims record the acting party distinctly from the subject. - Downscoping - Exchange a broad token for a narrower one bound to a specific audience and scope.
- Short-lived, purpose-bound credentials - The natural mechanism for issuing an agent a credential scoped to one task.
- Widely implemented, rarely declared - Supported by the major identity platforms; effectively absent from published API contracts.
This is the specification that already answers the hardest question in agentic software — dual identity, where an agent acts and a human is represented. The OAuth 2.0 Standard and The OpenID Connect Standard both find the primitives specified and essentially unused: machine-readable consent and delegation surfaces appear in 3.9–7.1% of the markets scored.
Referenced in API Evangelist papers
This standard shows up in my published research. These reports read the machine-readable evidence provider by provider — and put this standard in the context of a real sector.
The OpenID Connect Standard
The `act` / `may_act` machinery for dual identity, in a market publishing machine-readable consent 3.9–7.1% of the time.
The OAuth 2.0 Standard
Specified, widely implemented, and effectively absent from published contracts — the delegation primitive agentic authorization needs.
