Reconciliation

Reconciliation

Why being on the second connection is different from being on the first.

Three layers, and what each one can actually state

Identity platforms establish authority.

They can tell you which agent was allowed to act, on whose behalf, and with what entitlement. They are never on the connection between the agent and the data.

Agent platforms establish the claim.

They can tell you which tool was invoked and with what arguments. What came back is a self report, and result payloads are truncated by design, so the size and shape of what was returned is not in the record.

We establish the fact.

The statement as executed, the rows that came back, the columns that were read. Produced by something the agent does not control and cannot switch off.

Evidence

This is the artifact, not a dashboard screenshot.

record        sv_01J8F2K9QX4M
observed      2026-08-19T14:02:17.443Z
agent         agent-billing-assistant  platform: entra-agent-id
session       sess_7f3a9c  chain position 41 of 41
statement     SELECT id, name, ssn, dob, plan_id FROM members WHERE region = $1
parameters    $1 = 'WEST'
returned      40247 rows
columns       id  name [PII]  ssn [SENSITIVE]  dob [PII]  plan_id
policy        allowed, flagged: result set above session threshold
signature     ed25519  verified  chain intact

Synthetic example with illustrative field names and values.

What the record does not establish

The record shows what an agent read and changed. Whether that access was appropriate remains a policy and risk judgment.

Why the second connection is the one that matters

Identity and policy operate on the connection between the agent and the tool server. The query, row count and column list exist on the connection between the tool server and the database. Holding both records for one event produces reconciliation.

Where this shows up in practice

Incident scoping.

When something goes wrong, the first question is what data was reached. An answer built from a self report and a truncated payload cannot bound it, and an unbounded scope becomes a broad notification.

Vendor and customer assurance.

When a customer asks what your agent touched inside their data, a signed record answers it and a written attestation restarts the conversation.

Internal approval.

The team that has to sign off on production access is being asked to accept a risk whose consequence nobody can currently measure.

Hold both records for one event.

See the same event from the second connection, where the query actually executes.