Least Privilege Manifesto

The text discusses the challenges and necessity of implementing effective permission management for coding agents, which are increasingly being integrated into systems and applications. Historically, human users have been over-permissioned due to the impracticality of dynamically granting and revoking access based on specific tasks, leading to security vulnerabilities. While this overpermissioning was somewhat manageable with humans due to their limitations and judgment, coding agents lack these traits and can operate at high speeds without human oversight, posing significant security risks. The text argues that the principle of least privilege—granting the minimum necessary permissions for specific tasks—should be applied to agents, as they explicitly declare their tasks, allowing for dynamic and automated permission management. This approach can prevent catastrophic breaches by ensuring agents only access what they need to accomplish their tasks, providing a viable solution to the growing security concerns associated with the deployment of coding agents.