MA
MachineAuth

Introduction

MachineAuth is a self-hosted authentication platform for AI agents and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. It provides secure identity, permission, and access control for autonomous AI agents.

What is MachineAuth?

MachineAuth implements OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials flow to issue short-lived JWT access tokens for AI agents. It's built for developers who need to:

  • Give AI agents controlled access to APIs without exposing long-lived API keys
  • Track and audit all agent activity
  • Rotate credentials without downtime
  • Isolate agents into organizations and teams

Why MachineAuth?

Traditional authentication systems were designed for humans, not autonomous software. MachineAuth solves the unique challenges of AI agent authentication:

| Problem | MachineAuth Solution | |---------|---------------------| | Long-lived API keys | Short-lived JWTs (configurable expiry) | | No credential rotation | One-click rotation, zero downtime | | No visibility into agent activity | Per-agent usage tracking, audit logs | | Complex auth infrastructure | Single binary, JSON file for dev, Postgres for prod | | No webhook notifications | Built-in webhook system with retry logic |

Key Features

  • OAuth 2.0 Client Credentials — Industry-standard M2M authentication
  • RS256 JWT Tokens — Asymmetrically signed with auto-generated RSA keys
  • Credential Rotation — Rotate secrets without service interruption
  • Multi-Tenant Organizations — Isolated orgs with teams and API keys
  • Webhooks — Real-time event notifications with exponential backoff
  • Audit Logging — Full history of all agent and token operations

Architecture

┌─────────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│  Admin Dashboard │────▶│   Go Server  │────▶│  PostgreSQL   │
│  (React + TS)   │     │  (net/http)  │     │  or JSON file │
└─────────────────┘     └──────┬───────┘     └──────────────┘
                               │
                     ┌──────────┼──────────┐
                     │          │          │
               ┌─────▼──┐ ┌────▼───┐ ┌────▼────┐
               │ Agents  │ │ Tokens │ │Webhooks │
               │ Service │ │Service │ │ Worker  │
               └────────┘ └────────┘ └─────────┘

Next Steps

Ready to get started? Head to the Quick Start guide to get MachineAuth running in 5 minutes.