# Agents need a trust layer

April 15, 2026

Better tools are useful. Clear authority and evidence make them dependable.

Agents are getting better at reasoning and using tools. A basic question still needs a better answer: what were they allowed to do?

Git gives software a useful record. Changes can be reviewed, attributed, and reverted. An agent creating cloud resources or signing a contract may leave no comparable path back.

Payments make the gap easy to see. A prepaid wallet limits the damage, but an agent can still misread a quantity or spend the entire balance. A balance is not a complete set of instructions.

We need identity, explicit authority, limits attached to each action, approvals at the right moment, and durable evidence of what happened.

Sardis explores this model for payments. The broader idea is a trust layer that different systems can verify and use together. Better agents deserve better boundaries.