← Glossary Term
OAuth
The standard that lets you grant an app limited access to your account without sharing your password.
OAuth is the mechanism behind every “Sign in with Google” or “Connect your account” button. Instead of handing an app your password, you approve a limited, revocable permission, and the app gets a token that lets it do only what you allowed.
It is becoming central to AI because assistants increasingly act on your behalf across other services. OAuth is how you let an AI agent read your calendar or post to a tool without giving it the keys to everything, and how you can take that access back later. Getting these permissions right is one of the harder safety problems as agents do more real work.
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