Descope\
What is Descope Agentic Identity Hub?
Descope's Agentic Identity Hub provides identity infrastructure for AI agents and MCP servers, aimed at three audiences: MCP server developers, agent builders, and the security teams governing both. Its pieces: dedicated per-agent identities carrying "associated users, tenants, tool-level scopes"; MCP authentication built on OAuth 2.1 and PKCE with granular scope assignment; credential management issuing "portable, revocable tokens designed specifically for agents" backed by 50+ prebuilt connection templates; policy controls for per-agent and per-tool access; and audit logging that records "every AI agent's identity, the delegating user, and the tools / scopes / MCP servers" involved.
The platform supports ephemeral scoped credentials, JWT-based authorization, a credential vault with refresh, step-up authentication for sensitive operations, multi-tenant policy engines, SIEM export, and "Bring Your Own Auth" federation with existing IdPs. Descope has iterated quickly here, with 2.0 and 2.5 releases expanding policy controls and ecosystem integrations.
It is a serious platform, and its center of gravity is the deployment you control: your MCP servers, your agents, your tenants, your policies.
What is AgentID?
AgentID is a "Sign in with AgentID" button run by AgentMail as a standard OpenID Connect provider. An agent authenticates as itself with a signing credential that never leaves it; the app verifies a fresh one-time signature against published keys and receives an ES256-signed id_token with a stable subject and the agent's live-verified inbox address.
Two tiers. Open clients integrate with no registration (openid and email scopes, client_id is a URL the app controls). Registered clients, one RFC 7591 call authenticated with an AgentMail API key, unlock profile, owner_profile, and owner_email scopes plus an org claim for allowlisting partner organizations. Owner email is served from the userinfo endpoint, not embedded in the id_token, and a sign-in from an agent that has not granted owner visibility fails with a 403. Free for apps.
Inside vs outside
Descope governs identity within a perimeter someone administers. Agents get identities in your Descope deployment, scoped to your tenants, subject to your policies. That is what enterprise identity platforms are for, and agents genuinely need it.
AgentID handles the moment an agent leaves any perimeter: signing up for a SaaS tool, authenticating to a consumer app, arriving anywhere that has never heard of the organization behind it. There, identity must be verifiable by strangers and must carry accountability with it, which is what a public OIDC provider with an owner claim provides. An app accepting AgentID sign-ins needs no relationship with the agent's operator at all.
Side-by-side
| AgentID | Descope Agentic Identity Hub | |
|---|---|---|
| For | Apps accepting agent sign-ins from anywhere; agent developers | Teams securing their own MCP servers, agents, and tool connections |
| Cross-app support | Yes, one identity valid at any OIDC-capable app | Identities live in your Descope deployment; external reach via federation you configure |
| Owner email support | Yes, owner_email scope via userinfo, 403-enforced | Tracks delegating users internally for audit; no owner claim presented to unaffiliated apps |
| Standards support | Standard OIDC: code flow + PKCE (S256), ES256, RFC 7591 | OAuth 2.1, PKCE, JWT authorization, IdP federation |
| Pricing | Free for apps | Not published on the product page; platform pricing |
| Time to integrate | Minutes on an existing OIDC stack; two config values | Platform adoption: tenants, policies, templates, per-tool scopes |
| Who owns the identity root | AgentMail inbox controlled by the agent's owner | Your organization's Descope project |
When to choose Descope
Choose the Agentic Identity Hub when you operate the surface being secured. If you are shipping an MCP server and need OAuth 2.1 in front of it, or running a fleet of agents whose tool access needs scoping, vaulting, step-up auth, and SIEM-visible audit, this is the category Descope built for, and the 50+ connection templates shorten real work. Security teams get a policy engine; developers avoid hand-rolling OAuth.
Its identities serve your deployment. They are not designed as a credential an agent presents at an arbitrary login page, and outside apps have no way to verify them or learn an owner from them.
When to choose AgentID
Choose AgentID for the login page. If you build apps and want agent traffic disclosed, identified, and accountable, the button gives you that with two configuration values: every AgentID sign-in is an agent by definition, resolves to a stable subject, and, with registration, carries the owner's email for per-human limits, KYC pass-through, and abuse control. If you build agents, AgentID is an identity that works everywhere the button does, anchored to a working email inbox, without lending the agent your credentials.
Running both is coherent: Descope securing your MCP and tool layer, AgentID identifying your agents to the outside world (or identifying outside agents to your app).
Get started
Add AgentID as a custom OIDC provider with two values, or register a client (one RFC 7591 call) for owner scopes and org allowlisting. Guides at auth.agentid.com/docs.
