Beyond Single-Use Tokens: Durable Authorization State for Replay-Resistant LLM Agent Actions
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Agent threats, guardrails and governance
Abstract (arXiv)
Tool-using large language model agents frequently replan, retry failed operations, delegate tasks, and resume after crashes. These behaviors can cause one user authorization to be requested and executed multiple times under freshly issued token identifiers, even when each individual token is single-use. We call this failure semantic replay: exceeding the execution budget of a token-independent authorization instance rather than merely reusing an old token identifier. We show that identifier-local token consumption cannot prevent fresh reissuance unless the issuer retains monotonic durable state over the authorized action, confirmation event, and remaining execution budget. We introduce CapLease, an authorization-consumption layer that follows proposal- and authority-level defenses, binds an authenticated user confirmation to a canonical action, and enforces transactional Issue-Prepare-Commit transitions. Across LLM-agent replanning, retry, delegation, concurrency, confirmation-replay, and crash-recovery scenarios, identifier-local tokens permit fresh semantic reissuance, whereas CapLease and an equally stateful Server Ledger prevent duplicate admission and, with an idempotent sink, duplicate external effects. Our results identify durable authorization state, rather than token representation alone, as the systems requirement for replay-resistant agent execution.
Key facts. Cited by 7 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 10 of its 25 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 3 Aug 2026.
Builds on
10 of 25 references.
Closest ancestors · 8
Same direction, newest first
- 2026Context-to-Execution Integrity for LLM Agents7 Jul
- 2026AIRGuard: Guarding Agent Actions with Runtime Authority Control27 May
- 2026The Granularity Mismatch in Agent Security: Argument-Level Provenance Solves Enforcement and Isolates the LLM Reasoning Bottleneck11 May
- 2026SUDP: Secret-Use Delegation Protocol for Agentic Systems27 Apr
- 2025LlamaFirewall: An open source guardrail system for building secure AI agents6 May
- 2025Defeating Prompt Injections by Design24 Mar
- 2025MELON: Provable Defense Against Indirect Prompt Injection Attacks in AI Agents7 Feb
- 2024Agent Security Bench (ASB): Formalizing and Benchmarking Attacks and Defenses in LLM-based Agents3 Oct
Other references · 2
- 2022ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Modelscited by 8,695
- 2023Toolformer: Language Models Can Teach Themselves to Use Toolscited by 4,182
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 7.
7 papers.
- 2026AID-Guard: Stateful Authorization for Delegated Agent Effectscited by 5
- 2026ResidualAuth: What Authorization State Must Language Agents Preserve under Revocable Delegation?cited by 2
- 2026Making AI-Assisted Claims Independently Challengeable: Publication Authority and a Protocol for Falsifiable Publication Recordscited by 0
- 2026Beyond Approved Actions: Runtime Validation of Persistent Outcomes in Agent Workflowscited by 0
- 2026Authorization Closure Graph: Minimal Repair for LLM Agents with Evolving User Instructionscited by 0
- 2026Boundary-State Control for Tool-Using Language-Model Agents: Commit-Time Consistency under State Driftcited by 0
- 2026Fault-Tolerant Budget Conservation in Distributed Multi-Agent Delegationcited by 0
- 2026Fault-Tolerant Budget Conservation in Distributed Multi-Agent Delegation29 Sep 2026
- 2026Boundary-State Control for Tool-Using Language-Model Agents: Commit-Time Consistency under State Drift26 Sep 2026
- 2026Authorization Closure Graph: Minimal Repair for LLM Agents with Evolving User Instructions26 Sep 2026
- 2026Beyond Approved Actions: Runtime Validation of Persistent Outcomes in Agent Workflows25 Sep 2026
- 2026Making AI-Assisted Claims Independently Challengeable: Publication Authority and a Protocol for Falsifiable Publication Records15 Sep 2026
- 2026ResidualAuth: What Authorization State Must Language Agents Preserve under Revocable Delegation?8 Sep 2026
- 2026AID-Guard: Stateful Authorization for Delegated Agent Effects21 Aug 2026
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2026ACRFence: Preventing Semantic Rollback Attacks in Agent Checkpoint-Restore
- 2026Agent Memory Is a Surface for Endogenous Authorization Laundering
- 2026ContractBench: Can LLM Agents Preserve Observation Contracts?
- 2026From Approval to Execution: Reconstruction-Aware Repair Analysis for LLM-Agent Software
- 2026Temporary Authority, Permanent Effects: Commit-Time Authorization for LLM Agents
- 2026When Memory Becomes Authority: Benchmarking Authority Collapse at the Memory Consolidation Boundary
- 2026Persistent Billable State: Denial-of-Wallet Attacks and Defenses in Tool-Calling LLM Agents
- 2026Capability Gates Are Not Authorization: Confused-Deputy Failures in LLM Agent Frameworks