Enterprise-Managed Authorization (Cross App Access, ID-JAG)
In short:Enterprise-Managed Authorization lets a company's identity provider decide which apps an agent may reach. It started as Cross App Access, uses an ID-JAG token and became an MCP extension adopted by Anthropic, Microsoft and Okta. Admins approve the connection once, centrally.
What is it?
The user signs in to the enterprise identity provider as usual. The identity provider issues an Identity Assertion JWT Authorization Grant, or ID-JAG, for a target app.
The client exchanges the ID-JAG at the target app's authorization server for an access token. No per-user consent screen is needed.
Why do agents need it?
Agents connect to many apps. Per-user consent for each pairing does not scale and leaves security teams blind.
Central policy means the identity provider can revoke an agent's reach across every app at once.
Which scored platforms name it?
- Aembit: Names XAA and ID-JAG. ae-home
- Descope: Shipped Cross App Access support on 1 September 2026; ID-JAG keeps agent, user and tenant linked. ds-xaa
Other scored platforms: not found in public material read on 3 November 2026.
Other standards
- OAuth 2.1
- MCP authorization
- Client ID Metadata Documents (CIMD)
- SPIFFE
- DPoP and mTLS
- CIBA (human approval)
- OAuth token exchange (RFC 8693)
Sources
- [mcp-ema] MCP Enterprise-Managed Authorization. https://blog.modelcontextprotocol.io/posts/enterprise-managed-auth/. Read .
- [ok-agentsso] Okta Agent SSO. https://www.okta.com/newsroom/press-releases/okta-brings-first-class-identity-to-ai-agents-with-agent-sso/. Read .
- [ds-xaa] Descope: Cross App Access. https://www.descope.com/blog/post/xaa. Read .
- [ae-home] Aembit home. https://aembit.io/. Read .