AI engineering glossary · Agents tools MCP
What is least privilege for agents?
Least privilege for agents: The security principle of giving an agent only the tools, data and permissions needed for its job, and no more. It limits the damage if the agent errs or is manipulated, for example by hostile text in a web page.
Least privilege for agents: an example
A report-writing agent gets read-only database access, not the ability to modify or delete tables.
Related terms
More Agents tools MCP terms
- LlamaIndex
- Long-term memory
- Max iterations
- MCP authorization
- MCP capability negotiation
- MCP client
- MCP elicitation
- MCP host
Where you learn it
Least privilege for agents is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.