We can do better than --dangerously-skip-permissions (w/ Michael Grinich, Founder of WorkOS)

We thought we had access control for software all figured out. You joined a company, and got access to just the tools you needed, and none you didn't.

• Auth is two questions: who are you, and what are you allowed to do? Authentication proves the first, authorization answers the second. Michael's analogy is a driver's licence: the front proves you're you, and "if on the back of your driver's license it says that you have a motorcycle endorsement, you can ride a motorcycle."
• SSO, SAML and SCIM are your work login, the plumbing behind it, and switching it off when you leave. Megan's summary, which he signed off on: "SSO for login, SAML for how it kind of comes together and the protocol works, and then SCIM for when you leave."
• You can't tell what an AI agent needs from what you asked it. Ask an agent to find ways to save the company money and "you don't know what systems it needs access to. In practice, it needs access to everything. But also nothing."
• Approval pop-ups don't scale to agents. What works for one person approving one request breaks when software acts thousands of times a second: "To err is human, but to screw up 10,000 times per second you need a computer."
• What's risky depends on the company, so the AI model can't be the one to decide. "In Company A, it might be totally fine for a model to take a certain action in a certain domain. In a Company B, it might be totally different." At WorkOS, anything under $100 you just buy.
• The old systems don't go away; they get extended for agents. WorkOS's future is "auth for agents and auth for AI and not just auth for people."

Presented by Railway, your agent’s favorite cloud.

Original music by The Jazz Boys.

Show notes and the full transcript: https://technically.dev/podcast/all-about-auth

• (00:00) - What does WorkOS do?
• (01:17) - What are SSO, SAML and SCIM?
• (04:35) - Why not build auth yourself?
• (07:57) - What is a zero-day?
• (12:30) - Authentication vs. authorization
• (15:28) - Permissions are a graph
• (18:15) - Why do agents break permissions?
• (26:30) - What is a harness?
• (31:54) - Who decides what's risky for an agent?
• (34:54) - What does an AI-native company look like?
• (45:25) - Why can't you trust an agent like a person?
• (47:43) - Why do 50-person startups need SSO?
• (51:07) - Will agents replace SSO and SCIM?
• (52:54) - Why does SOC 2 make SSO mandatory?
• (54:26) - Would you start WorkOS today?