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Freedom251 › Blog › AI agents

How to Audit Which Credentials an AI Agent Used to Take an Action

By Freedom251 Team · · 11 min read

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To determine which credentials an AI agent used, reconstruct one action across three records: the agent or workload’s sign-in, the token exchange or credential-retrieval event, and the downstream authorization and action event. Keep three identities separate throughout: the human or workload whose authority is represented, the agent that made the call, and the credential source or issuer.

A downstream API log may show only a service principal or assumed role. A sign-in log may show a user subject but not prove that the agent possessed the user’s password or access token. Only a correlated chain—with timestamps, request or trace IDs, subjects, actors, scopes and outcomes—can support a defensible conclusion. The exact fields depend on your identity provider, cloud services, tenant settings and API versions.

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What you are trying to prove

“Which credential did the agent use?” is usually three different questions:

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  • Who was represented? The token subject may be a signed-in user, an application, a workload identity or an impersonated service account.
  • Which agent or workload made the call? This is the actor that invoked the tool, gateway or downstream API. In delegated flows it can differ from the token subject.
  • Where did the credential come from? The issuer or credential source may be an identity provider, a token-exchange service, a workload-identity pool, a role-assumption service or a managed secret system.

These distinctions matter because an agent can act with user authorization without receiving the user’s raw secret. Conversely, a shared service account can make an action appear to come from one identity even when several agents or users initiated it.

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The evidence chain for one action

Build a timeline around the exact action rather than searching for a single “agent used credential” event. A useful chain has four links:

  1. Agent execution: an application, workflow, job or agent-run record identifies the tool call and supplies a run ID, trace ID or request ID.
  2. Authentication: a sign-in or workload-authentication event records the actor that obtained access.
  3. Credential operation: a token exchange, credential retrieval, short-lived token generation or role assumption records how authorization was obtained.
  4. Downstream action: the target service records the API operation, principal, resource, permission decision and result.

Preserve UTC timestamps and the original event IDs. Join records using correlation IDs when available; otherwise use a narrow time window, subject, actor, audience, resource and operation name. A sign-in event and a successful API call that happen near each other are useful leads, not proof of a complete chain.

Step-by-step audit procedure

1. Define the action precisely

Write down the target system, resource, operation, approximate UTC time and expected result. Capture the agent-run ID, job ID, application request ID, distributed-trace ID, tool-call ID and any user-session identifier. If the agent can retry, include every attempt rather than assuming the first request succeeded.

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2. Start with the target service

Search the downstream system for the action result first. Record the principal or account shown by the target, the resource and method, allow or deny decision, status code, request ID, source IP or workload location where available, and the exact timestamp. This establishes what the target actually saw; it does not by itself identify the upstream secret or human.

3. Classify the target principal

Determine whether the target recorded a human account, application or service principal, workload identity, assumed role, impersonated service account or dedicated agent identity. Do not infer a human user from a service-account display name. A target that sees one shared identity cannot distinguish individual runs unless your application adds independent tracing.

4. Find authentication events

Search the identity provider and cloud audit service for sign-in, workload-authentication, role-assumption or agent-sign-in events immediately before the downstream call. Filter by the target principal, client or agent identity, audience, source location and request or correlation identifier. Keep the event’s actor and subject as separate fields.

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5. Find the credential operation

Look specifically for token exchange, credential retrieval, short-lived credential generation, impersonation or role-assumption records. These operations can be logged separately from both sign-in and the final API call. Record the grant type, provider or resource, audience, scopes, principal subject, issuing service, status and authorization decision.

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6. Read subject and actor independently

In an on-behalf-of flow, the user is commonly the token subject while the agent is the actor. In a service-to-service flow, the agent or application can be the subject. A delegation chain may contain an original subject, an intermediate agent and an immediate actor. Never collapse those fields into a single “user” column.

7. Verify authorization and outcome

Compare the requested scopes or permissions with the policy and consent state that applied at the time. Check the token audience or resource, policy version, conditional-access result and allow or deny decision. Issuance of a token proves that a credential operation occurred; it does not prove that the intended policy authorized the final action or that the action completed successfully.

8. Check logging coverage

Confirm that the relevant Data Access or equivalent audit categories were enabled before treating a missing event as evidence that no exchange occurred. Check retention, export destinations, clock synchronization, ingestion delay and whether records are protected from alteration. Some client-side failures are not emitted as audit events.

9. Write a confidence-rated conclusion

State exactly what the records establish: for example, “The target accepted a token for service account X; a workload Y generated that short-lived credential through provider Z; the user account appeared as the delegated subject.” Separately list inferences and gaps, such as an unavailable exchange event, an unlogged client error or a shared static key that cannot identify the individual run.

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Identity patterns and the audit question each answers

Pattern What the downstream call represents Typical fit Audit question
User-delegated authorization-code flow Access authorized by a user and limited to granted permissions Interactive agents working with a user’s own data Which user consented, which scopes were granted, and which client or agent used the access?
Client credentials or machine identity The application, workload or agent itself Background jobs and organization-owned resources Which service identity and application permissions made the call?
On-behalf-of token exchange User context plus the agent identity An authenticated agent calling a downstream service with user-level authorization Who was the subject, which agent was the actor, and what audience and scopes did the exchanged token carry?

A single agent can use more than one pattern. For example, it might use its own machine identity to read a queue, delegated user context to inspect a user’s files, and an on-behalf-of token to call a business API. Audit each function separately.

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Microsoft Entra and Agent 365 evidence

Microsoft’s agent-identity documentation distinguishes blueprint, agent identity and agent user account. In service-to-service mode, the agent identity is the token subject. In on-behalf-of mode, the signed-in user is the subject and the agent identity is the actor. The documented sign-in and audit records can expose credential source, acting identity and token subject.

Microsoft also documents agentSignIn events and agentType and blueprintId fields in relevant audit resource types. Agent sign-ins may appear across four sign-in log types because agents can use delegated or app-only permissions. Filter for the agent indicator and agent type, then verify the current Graph API version, tenant availability, permissions and event schema in your environment; the cited endpoint is beta.

Blueprint credentials are shared by every agent identity created from that blueprint. Treat the blueprint as a credential boundary: use separate blueprints when agents need independent attribution or different privilege sets. A blueprint field does not guarantee that a downstream API will reveal a raw secret or a unique secret identifier.

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AWS AgentCore and agentic-identity controls

AWS describes three implementation patterns: user-delegated OAuth authorization code, machine-to-machine client credentials and on-behalf-of token exchange. Its on-behalf-of model uses an audience-scoped downstream token that binds user and agent identity, allowing the receiving service to authorize with both.

Choose among the patterns by asking three questions: who owns the data, whether a user is present to consent, and whether execution is interactive or background. A background process operating on organization-owned resources generally needs a dedicated machine identity. An agent handling a user’s data needs delegated authorization. An already-authenticated agent calling another service with the user’s permissions needs a token exchange that preserves both identities.

AWS security guidance recommends distinct service identities, signed propagation of user context without making the agent assume the user’s credentials, least privilege and short-lived credentials. Shared static credentials and broadly reused roles provide weak agent-versus-human attribution. These are design recommendations, not a promise that every AWS service emits every desired field by default; inspect the audit schema for each service involved.

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Google Cloud credential and federation logs

Google’s Agent Identity audit documentation lists RetrieveCredentials as a Data Access event for Agent Identity Credentials. That matters because retrieval can be audited independently of the eventual API operation.

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Workload Identity Federation examples show Data Access records for token exchange and short-lived service-account credential generation. The examples include the principal subject, method name, provider or resource, grant type, status and authorization information. Downstream activity can identify both the impersonated service account and the identity that created its short-lived credentials.

Data Access logging must be enabled for all relevant exchange steps. In the documented example, client errors such as invalid credentials or invalid arguments are not logged. Therefore, an absent exchange record is inconclusive until you verify the logging setting, retention and whether the failure occurred before the service accepted the request.

Okta delegation chains

Okta’s token-exchange model uses a subject-token parameter and a token-exchange grant. Its delegation-chain example separates the original origin, an agent that delegated onward, the immediate actor and the subject whose authority is represented.

Use that model when several agents call one another: preserve each hop, rather than recording only the final actor. Confirm the exact claims emitted by your authorization server and the claims accepted by the downstream resource; configured policies determine which delegation fields are present.

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What a defensible audit record should contain

Create a normalized record for every high-impact tool call, even when providers use different field names. At minimum, retain:

  • Action timestamp in UTC and the provider’s original timestamp.
  • Agent-run, job, request and distributed-trace identifiers.
  • Agent or workload identity and its tenant, project or account.
  • Token subject, immediate actor and any original subject in a delegation chain.
  • Credential source or issuer, provider resource and token audience.
  • Grant type or credential mechanism, such as client credentials, authorization code, exchange, retrieval or impersonation.
  • Scopes, roles or permissions requested and actually granted.
  • Target resource, method, policy decision, status and response code.
  • Event IDs, log category, ingestion time and retention or export location.

Store references and metadata, not secret material. A credential fingerprint can help correlate events if your platform provides one, but the reviewed provider documentation does not promise a universal fingerprint field. Never put access tokens, client secrets or private keys into ordinary audit logs.

When the records do not line up

The target shows a service identity but no user

This is common with machine credentials and shared service accounts. Check application-level tracing, signed user-context claims and the agent run record. Without those independent records, you may be able to prove which service identity acted but not which user initiated the run.

A sign-in exists but no token exchange

Verify whether the agent reused an existing token, used a client credential, retrieved a secret from a managed store or performed an exchange in another tenant or project. Check Data Access logging and ingestion delay before concluding that no credential operation occurred.

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A token exchange exists but the action is missing

Look for denied policy decisions, wrong audience or scopes, network failures, retries against another endpoint and asynchronous job execution. Token issuance alone does not establish that the target accepted the token.

Several actions share one timestamp

Use request IDs, trace IDs, resource names and method names to disambiguate. If the provider has only second-level timestamps and no correlation ID, report the ambiguity rather than assigning the credential to one run by guesswork.

Client errors are absent

Some services do not log malformed requests or invalid credentials at the same stage as successful exchanges. Preserve client-side telemetry, gateway logs and agent-run errors so the audit does not depend on provider-side records alone.

Design changes that make future audits easier

  • Use one identity boundary per agent class. Separate blueprints, service principals or workload identities when agents require independent attribution or privileges.
  • Prefer short-lived credentials. Their issuance and expiry create a narrower, more reliable time window than a long-lived shared key.
  • Propagate user context as signed claims. Let downstream services verify the user and agent separately instead of giving the agent the user’s raw credential.
  • Apply least privilege. Keep scopes and roles specific to the tool and resource; record consent and policy decisions alongside the action.
  • Instrument every tool call. Generate a run ID and carry it through the gateway, token service and target API where the protocols allow.
  • Enable the right audit categories. Turn on Data Access or equivalent credential-operation logs, export them to protected storage and monitor retention.
  • Protect log integrity. Restrict write access, separate administration from review, and retain provider event IDs so records can be checked against the source.

These controls improve attribution and authorization. They do not by themselves stop prompt injection or unsafe tool arguments; those require separate input validation, policy enforcement and agent-runtime controls.

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How to report the final finding

A useful report has four parts:

  1. Confirmed action: what resource was changed, when, and what the target recorded.
  2. Credential path: the sign-in, retrieval, exchange, generation or assumption event that links the actor to the target principal.
  3. Identity interpretation: who the subject was, which agent acted, and which issuer or source supplied the credential.
  4. Limitations: missing events, disabled categories, retention gaps, shared credentials, clock uncertainty or fields that were inferred rather than recorded.

For example: “At 14:03:12 UTC, the billing API accepted an update from service identity A. A workload event shows agent B requested a short-lived credential from provider C at 14:03:11, with user D as the delegated subject and scope E. The exchange and target request share trace ID F. No raw secret was logged. Because the provider did not retain the client-side failure stream, we cannot determine whether an earlier retry used a different credential.” That wording distinguishes evidence from inference and states what remains unknown.

Bottom line

Audit the credential journey, not just the final API call. Correlate the agent’s execution, authentication, credential issuance or retrieval and downstream authorization records; keep subject, actor and issuer separate; verify logging coverage; and disclose gaps. When those records are designed and retained together, you can answer whether an agent acted with its own identity, delegated user context or an exchanged short-lived credential without claiming that an audit log revealed a secret it never recorded.

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