Keycard
Keycard is an identity and access platform purpose-built for AI agents, founded by former Snyk and Auth0 leaders (including the creator of Passport.js). It verifies agent identity, mints short-lived task-scoped tokens in place of static API keys, and enforces runtime policy with auditable logs.
Quick answer
What is Keycard?
Short answer
Keycard is an identity and access platform purpose-built for AI agents, founded by former Snyk and Auth0 leaders (including the creator of Passport.js). It verifies agent identity, mints short-lived task-scoped tokens in place of static API keys, and enforces runtime policy with auditable logs.
- Best for
- Engineering and security teams deploying autonomous or semi-autonomous AI agents (including MCP-based tooling) who need per-task credentials, policy enforcement, and audit trails.
- When to choose
- Choose Keycard if you are actively shipping AI agents or MCP integrations and need scoped, auditable, short-lived credentials with runtime policy from day one.
- When not to choose
- Look elsewhere if your priority is broad secrets management, human PAM, or governance of traditional service accounts rather than AI-agent access.
Common use cases
- Issuing identity-bound, task-scoped tokens to AI agents instead of shared static API keys
- Securing MCP servers and coding agents (e.g., Claude Code) with per-task access controls
- Runtime policy enforcement with observe-only testing mode and rollback
- Composite identity resolution tying agent actions to user, device, and task context
- Tamper-resistant audit logging of agent activity with SIEM export (Splunk, Datadog)
- Federating agent identity with existing workforce IdPs such as Okta
Strengths
- Purpose-built for the AI-agent access problem with standards-based protocols (OAuth 2.1 + PKCE, MCP, SPIFFE-style workload attestation) rather than proprietary lock-in
- Founding team with strong credentials: ex-Snyk leadership and the former Auth0 chief architect who created Passport.js
- Transparent published pricing with a free tier, unusual in this category
- $38M raised (a16z, boldstart, Acrew-led Series A, October 2025) and SOC 2 Type II certification
- February 2026 acquisition of Anchor.dev added certificate automation and per-task/per-tool-call runtime policy enforcement for coding agents
Limitations & considerations
- Young company (emerged from stealth in October 2025) in a fast-moving, still-consolidating category
- Focused on AI-agent access; not a general secrets manager or full non-human identity governance suite
- Primarily SaaS-delivered; self-hosted or private-networking options are Enterprise-tier items to verify with the vendor
- Standards for agent identity (MCP auth, OAuth extensions) are still evolving, so integration patterns may change
Pricing model summary
Free Starter tier (5,000 transactions/month); Team at $500/month for 100,000 transactions plus $1 per 1,000 additional; Enterprise is custom-priced.
View vendor pricing page ↗Integrations
Fit
Alternatives & comparisons
Clutch Security is a non-human identity (NHI) security platform that maps service accounts, keys, tokens, and AI agents to their origins via its Identity Lineage graph, then layers on lifecycle management, posture, and threat detection. It added an Agentic AI Governance module for discovering and setting guardrails around AI agents and their credential usage.
Compare Keycard vs Clutch Security →Natoma provides a governed way to connect AI agents and clients (such as Claude Code, ChatGPT, and Snowflake Cortex) to enterprise tools through a catalog of 100+ verified MCP servers, with identity-aware access policies, agent IAM, and audit trails. It began as a non-human identity management platform and has centered its product on secure agentic connectivity.
Compare Keycard vs Natoma →Defakto (formerly SPIRL, rebranded in 2026) is a non-human identity and access management platform built on the SPIFFE standard. It issues dynamic, cryptographically verifiable identities for services, workloads, CI/CD pipelines, and AI agents in place of static credentials and service accounts.
Compare Keycard vs Defakto →Aembit is a workload identity and access management platform that manages how workloads, services, and AI agents authenticate and access downstream APIs and services — without static credentials.
Compare Keycard vs Aembit →Keycard and its logo are trademarks of their respective owner. IDSync is an independent buyer resource and does not imply endorsement unless explicitly stated.