Agent Identity
Every OpenBox agent has a cryptographic identity — a Decentralized Identifier (DID) and an Ed25519 signing key — separate from its API key.
The API key authenticates the HTTP call. The signing key proves which agent produced the payload. If an API key leaks, an attacker can reach OpenBox, but they still cannot act as the agent without its private key.
The DID
Every agent has an identifier of the form:
did:aip:<uuidv5>
It's deterministic — the same agent always resolves to the same DID — and it's stable across key rotation. You'll see it on the agent's Settings page and in audit records for any request the agent signed.
The signing key
The private key is Ed25519, generated when identity is provisioned. OpenBox shows it to you once and never stores it. You hold it; OpenBox holds the public half and uses it to verify every signed governance request.
Enforcement
Whether OpenBox actually requires signed requests for an agent is controlled by a per-agent setting called Require signed requests.
| State | Behaviour |
|---|---|
| On | Unsigned requests for this agent are rejected. |
| Off | Unsigned requests are accepted (for agents that haven't provisioned identity yet, or that you've intentionally exempted). |
Both new agents and agents that have just been provisioned default to On — enforcement begins the moment provisioning completes. Agents that haven't provisioned identity yet keep accepting unsigned requests.
Where to manage it
Identity actions live on the agent's Settings → API Access page:
- Provision DID — generate the keypair and assign a DID (for agents that don't have one yet)
- Rotate Private Key — issue a new keypair without changing the DID
- Require signed requests — toggle enforcement on or off
See Agent Settings → API Access for the step-by-step flow.
Your responsibilities
- Store the private key securely. It's shown once. Put it in the secrets manager your agent process reads from.
- Deploy the key before provisioning a live agent. Enforcement turns on as soon as you click Provision DID. If the agent process isn't already signing requests, unsigned in-flight calls will be rejected.
- Rotate immediately if you suspect exposure. The DID stays the same; only the key changes.
- Update your agent before rotating in production. Signatures from the old key stop verifying as soon as rotation completes.