# Temporary Authority, Permanent Effects: Commit-Time Authorization for LLM Agents arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.10487 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10487/ ## Key facts - Cited by 18 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). - Placed in Agent threats, guardrails and governance, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. - Builds on 63 of its 81 references that are in the map. - First posted on arXiv 11 Jul 2026. ## Placed in - LLM agents and tool use / [Agent threats, guardrails and governance](https://mlsanity.com/agents/agent-threats-guardrails-and-governance/) ## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 63) - [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022) - [Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.04761/) (2023) - [A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11432/) (2023) - [WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13854/) (2023) - [AutoGen: Enabling Next-Gen LLM Applications via Multi-Agent Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08155/) (2023) - [ToolLLM: Facilitating Large Language Models to Master 16000+ Real-world APIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.16789/) (2023) - [MetaGPT: Meta Programming for A Multi-Agent Collaborative Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00352/) (2023) - [The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.07864/) (2023) - [τ-bench: A Benchmark for Tool-Agent-User Interaction in Real-World Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12045/) (2024) - [CAMEL: Communicative Agents for "Mind" Exploration of Large Language Model Society](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17760/) (2023) - [Gorilla: Large Language Model Connected with Massive APIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.15334/) (2023) - [AgentBench: Evaluating LLMs as Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.03688/) (2023) - [Mind2Web: Towards a Generalist Agent for the Web](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06070/) (2023) - [OSWorld: Benchmarking Multimodal Agents for Open-Ended Tasks in Real Computer Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07972/) (2024) - [GAIA: a benchmark for General AI Assistants](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.12983/) (2023) - [OpenHands: An Open Platform for AI Software Developers as Generalist Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.16741/) (2024) - [ChatDev: Communicative Agents for Software Development](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.07924/) (2023) - [CogAgent: A Visual Language Model for GUI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.08914/) (2023) - [API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08244/) (2023) - [SeeClick: Harnessing GUI Grounding for Advanced Visual GUI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.10935/) (2024) - [AndroidWorld: A Dynamic Benchmarking Environment for Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.14573/) (2024) - [WebVoyager: Building an End-to-End Web Agent with Large Multimodal Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.13919/) (2024) - [AppAgent: Multimodal Agents as Smartphone Users](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13771/) (2023) - [AppWorld: A Controllable World of Apps and People for Benchmarking Interactive Coding Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.18901/) (2024) - [WorkArena: How Capable Are Web Agents at Solving Common Knowledge Work Tasks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07718/) (2024) - [A Real-World WebAgent with Planning, Long Context Understanding, and Program Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.12856/) (2023) - [A Dynamic LLM-Powered Agent Network for Task-Oriented Agent Collaboration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.02170/) (2023) - [ToolQA: A Dataset for LLM Question Answering with External Tools](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.13304/) (2023) - [Survey on Evaluation of LLM-based Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.16416/) (2025) - [Agent S: An Open Agentic Framework that Uses Computers Like a Human](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.08164/) (2024) ## Built on by (most cited first, 18 of 18) - [AID-Guard: Stateful Authorization for Delegated Agent Effects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.21159/) (2026) - [Cognitive Admission Control: Risk-Conditioned Assurance for Consequential Actions in Agentic Distributed Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16313/) (2026) - [Correct Is Not Governed: Provenance Integrity in Agentic Workflows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.12761/) (2026) - [The Illusion of Independent Quorums: Epistemic Fault Domains and Correlated Cognitive Failures in Agentic Quorums](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.02925/) (2026) - [When AI Agents Commit: Cognitive Serializability Across Data, Evidence, Policy, and Authority](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.20261/) (2026) - [Influence Is Not Authority: When Causal Guardrail Signals Make Legitimate Tool Use Look Like an Attack in Tool-Using LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.29942/) (2026) - [Agents in the Large: Perception-Centered Architecture for Persistent Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.30478/) (2026) - [Versioned Transitive Dependency-Closure Binding and Operation-Time Effect Governance for Agent Skills: ClosureBound](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05920/) (2026) - [Authorization Revocation for Long-Running AI Agents: Root-Scoped Quiescence under Delegation and Asynchronous Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.21284/) (2026) - [Stateful Governance for Concurrent Agentic Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.02764/) (2026) - [The Guard That Cried Wolf: How Scary Words Make Agent Guardrails Refuse Legitimate Actions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.27009/) (2026) - [Fresh Memory, Stale Plans: Dependency-Scoped Validation for Distributed LLM-Agent Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.03340/) (2026) - [Stale Does Not Mean Unsafe: Guard Precision for Tool-Using LLM Agents under Infrastructure State Races](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29522/) (2026) - [Beyond Approved Actions: Runtime Validation of Persistent Outcomes in Agent Workflows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.31301/) (2026) - [Authorization Closure Graph: Minimal Repair for LLM Agents with Evolving User Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.32428/) (2026) - [When Consent Outlives Context: Residual Authority Replay in Long-Lived Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.33910/) (2026) - [Boundary-State Control for Tool-Using Language-Model Agents: Commit-Time Consistency under State Drift](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.37475/) (2026) - [Fault-Tolerant Budget Conservation in Distributed Multi-Agent Delegation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.00349/) (2026) ## Abstract (arXiv) LLM agents can commit durable effects from authority evidence that was valid earlier in execution: a DOM snapshot, approval epoch, version witness, branch token, or worker result. We study the commit boundary at which earlier authority evidence no longer authorizes a durable effect. We call this property commit-time authorization: a durable effect is authorized only if the witness that licensed its derived state remains fresh, causally prior, bound to the same effect, and eligible at commit time. We build a controlled-invalidation suite spanning browser, tool/API, and multi-agent workflows. The suite preserves the user goal and payload shape while invalidating the authority relation before durability. In the primary 54-task matrix, endpoint success remains high: 262/270 runs reach the visible result. Only 55/270 are authorized completions; among the 216 invalidating rows, 207 commit after the authorizing path has failed. All 54 clean controls remain authorized, and a separate 54-run authority-preserving check produces no unauthorized commits. We then evaluate mitigation families. Prompt caution and single-condition checks are insufficient because different hazards break different boundary conditions. Defenses work when they refresh, rebind, replan, or refuse at the durability boundary. CommitGuard, a fail-closed boundary monitor, blocks stale durable-effect attempts on protected commit surfaces when runtimes emit witness, dependency, binding, and eligibility signals. The result is a reporting and runtime-design lesson: endpoint success is a utility metric; authorized commit is a security property.