AgentID

AgentID is the identity layer for AI agents. It lets an AI agent carry a time-limited cryptographic certificate proving its operator has authenticated via BankID. Third-party services verify the certificate offline using standard RS256 JWT verification — no round-trip to AgentID required.

Inspiration

As AI agents become more autonomous, we identified a structural gap in the internet’s architecture: agents can act, but they cannot prove who they represent.

Websites respond by blocking automated traffic because there is no reliable way to distinguish a legitimate personal agent from spam, or large-scale data harvesting.

What we built

AgentID is an identity verification layer for AI agents, powered by BankID, which 99.9% of Swedes use in the ages 18-67 (Internetstiftelsen, 2025).

Core Components

• MCP Server A one-click install MCP server for personal AI agents, enabling identity binding at the agent level.

• Framework Integrations NPM packages for major web frameworks (Next.js, Express.js, etc.) that allow services to verify AgentID certificates with minimal integration effort. Next.JS: , Express.JS:

• Certificate Issuer Service (this repo) A central issuance service that binds a BankID-verified human identity to an AI agent and issues time-limited cryptographic credentials. https://agentidapp.vercel.app/

How it works

1. An AI agent calls POST /api/auth/start to request a new certificate.
2. AgentID creates a BankID session and returns an authUrl to display to the user.
3. The user opens the URL, scans the BankID QR code, and approves.
4. The agent polls GET /api/auth/status until status: "complete".
5. The agent attaches the signed JWT (X-AgentID-Token) to all subsequent requests.
6. Any third-party service verifies the JWT signature using the public key at /api/jwks.
7. The certificate expires after 1 hour — repeat from step 1.

API

POST /api/auth/start

Initiate a BankID authentication session.

Response

{
  "sessionId": "uuid",
  "authUrl": "https://agentidapp.vercel.app/auth/<sessionId>",
  "expiresAt": "2026-01-01T00:00:00.000Z"
}

GET /api/auth/status?sessionId=<id>

Poll for the result of an authentication session.

Response

{
  "status": "pending | complete | failed",
  "jwt": "<signed RS256 JWT>"
}

jwt is only present when status is "complete".

GET /api/jwks

Public JWK set for offline RS256 JWT verification. Fetch once and cache for 1 hour.

JWT certificate

Issued tokens use RS256 and contain:

{
  "iss": "agentid",
  "sub": "a3f8c2d1e4b7…",
  "auth_method": "bankid",
  "iat": 1700000000,
  "exp": 1700003600,
  "jti": "uuid-v4"
}

• sub is a stable pseudonymous identifier — HMAC-SHA256(secret, personalNumber). Same person always maps to the same value, but the personal number is never exposed.
• exp is always iat + 3600 (1 hour).
• jti is unique per token.

Running locally

npm install
npm run dev

Then open http://localhost:3000.

Environment variables

Create a .env.local file. Generate RSA keys and the HMAC secret with:

node scripts/generate-keys.mjs

Variable	Required	Description
GRANDID_BASE_URL	Yes	GrandID API base URL
GRANDID_API_KEY	Yes	GrandID API key
GRANDID_SERVICE_KEY	Yes	GrandID service key
NEXT_PUBLIC_APP_URL	Yes	Public base URL of this service
JWT_PRIVATE_KEY	Yes	RSA-2048 private key (PEM, base64-encoded)
JWT_PUBLIC_KEY	Yes	RSA-2048 public key (PEM, base64-encoded)
JWT_HMAC_SECRET	Yes	32-byte hex secret for pseudonymous sub derivation
REDIS_URL	Prod only	Redis connection string for persistent session storage

Security

• RS256 — asymmetric signing; the private key never leaves the server.
• Pseudonymous identity — personal numbers are never stored or exposed in JWTs.
• Offline verification — consumers fetch the public key from /api/jwks once and verify locally. No runtime dependency on AgentID.
• Short-lived tokens — 1-hour expiry limits the blast radius of a leaked token.
• Session isolation — each BankID session maps to a single-use AgentID session stored in Redis with a 10-minute TTL for pending sessions.

Tech stack

• Next.js (App Router)
• GrandID / E-identitet — BankID integration
• jose — RS256 JWT signing and JWKS
• Redis — session storage (via Vercel Storage Marketplace)
• Deployed on Vercel