The identity and secrets services give the system named boundaries for a machine, an agent and the material each is allowed to hold. They sit beneath the shell and conversation surfaces, where identity must survive an application closing or a session reconnecting.
An agent principal, machine identity and provider login are different things. A provider account supplies access to inference. It does not create an agent identity. Moving a working agent to another body needs an explicit account of custody, commissioning and revocation.
Keyed storage also has a lifecycle. An unlocked interface does not establish a permanent right to retain decrypted material after locking. Applications such as Culver and Lens consume these boundaries instead of declaring their own equivalent of human authentication.
What remains open
- Complete node commissioning and revocation remain unfinished.
- Installed identity primitives do not establish a completed per-agent isolation or federation ceremony.
- Application-specific lock-time access and key eviction remain separately owned work.