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OktaSemona IgamaExplainer
Integrate Your Enterprise AI Tools with Cross App Access (XAA)
Summary
Enterprise AI tools increasingly use protocols such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) to request data and resources from work applications, creating identity and authorization challenges that ordinary app-to-app consent does not expose to enterprise administrators. Cross App Access (XAA) places the enterprise identity provider between the requesting application and resource application by combining OAuth Token Exchange (RFC 8693), JWT Profile for Authorization Grants (RFC 7523), and the Identity Assertion Authorization Grant profile. In the illustrated flow, a user signs in to Agent0, the IdP issues an ID token, and Agent0 exchanges it for an ID-JAG targeted at Todo0’s authorization server. Todo0 validates that assertion and returns its normal access token, enabling MCP requests without interactive consent while allowing enterprise policy checks. The design leaves access-token format and validation with the resource application, while refresh-token behavior remains to be defined to balance policy enforcement and session continuity.
Context
The article presents Cross App Access as a way to bring AI-to-application connections under enterprise identity-provider visibility and policy control. Its example uses Agent0 as an MCP client, Todo0 as the resource application, and Okta as the enterprise identity provider.
Approach / What changed
The flow starts with standard OpenID Connect or SAML sign-in to obtain an identity assertion. The requesting application sends that assertion to the enterprise IdP in an OAuth Token Exchange request for an ID-JAG, including the resource application’s authorization-server audience. After validating the assertion, client credentials, and configured policy, the IdP returns the ID-JAG; the requesting application presents it to the resource authorization server, which validates it and issues its normal access token.
Takeaways
XAA moves AI-to-application authorization into the enterprise IdP, allowing administrators to configure which requesting applications may access resource applications on a user’s behalf.
The requesting application uses an ID-JAG from the IdP to obtain a resource-specific access token; the resource application can continue using its existing access-token format and validation.
Refresh-token behavior is not yet fully defined. A refresh token with an overly long lifetime could reduce how often the IdP rechecks enterprise access policies.
FAQ
How does XAA avoid repeated OAuth consent prompts for users?
After the user signs in to the requesting application, the application exchanges the resulting ID token with the enterprise IdP for an ID-JAG. It then presents that assertion to the resource application, so the connection can be established without another user interaction or OAuth consent screen.
What does the enterprise identity provider control in the XAA flow?
The IdP validates the identity assertion and confirms that the requesting application is authorized under the customer’s configured policy to access the resource application for that user. It then issues the ID-JAG that the resource application uses before issuing its access token.
Why does the article call out refresh tokens as an unresolved issue?
A refresh token could let the client continue accessing resources without returning to the IdP frequently enough for policy enforcement. The article says the IdP should ultimately control the refresh-token lifetime while allowing the resource authorization server to decide its access-token lifetime.
Source and freshness
- Source
- developer.okta.com
- Published
- Added to Yomu
Summaries are generated from the original by a language model. Check the original before relying on it.
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