Principle of Least Authority (POLA)

The principle of least authority states that every component in a system — including every AI agent — should be granted only the minimum authority needed to perform its specific function, and no more. It is a stricter formulation of least privilege that focuses on capability grants rather than just read/write permissions. Applying POLA to agents means scoping credentials to individual tasks, using ephemeral tokens, and revoking access immediately when a task completes.