An API key is all-or-nothing and long-lived — the worst possible credential to hand an autonomous agent. Warrants are the alternative.
A key answers "who is calling" but carries no limits: hold the key, do anything the key can do, forever, until someone rotates it. Give one to an agent and a prompt injection or a bug inherits your full access. You can't scope a key to "read this repo, spend up to $20, for the next hour."
A warrant is a capability token — it encodes exactly what may be done, not just who is asking. Scope it to resources and actions, cap the spend, set an expiry, bind it to a holder key so a stolen copy is useless, and revoke it independently. The agent never touches your real keys.
Yes — use your API key to issue warrants from the gateway, then hand agents the narrow warrants. Your key stays server-side; agents only ever hold scoped, expiring authority.
The SDK and self-hosted gateway are free and open source. The hosted gateway at liceat.com gives 10,000 free decisions with no card, then meters at fractions of a cent per decision — payable by card or USDC.
Free to self-host. 10,000 free decisions on the hosted gateway — no card.
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