Demo: her own agent

One rule, one tier, two agents. Hers goes through without waking her; one that is not hers is asked anyway.

Left screen — Terminal, ~/uma4agents Right screen — Alice's portal, https://portal.uma.lab

Pre-demo setup

From cold to ready. Four commands on a Mac, two in a Codespace, about 20 minutes.

1 · Once per machine. Points your OS resolver at the lab's DNS so *.uma.lab works in a browser. One sudo. Skip both in a Codespace — it uses /etc/hosts instead.

brew install kind helm
make dns-setup

2 · Build the lab. Three-node kind cluster, Istio ambient, kgateway, cert-manager, CloudNativePG, and every party in its own namespace. ~13 minutes cold. If the compose stack is running it will stop you — both want :443 and :53, so run make down and try again.

make kind-up

3 · Trust the CA. cert-manager issues the lab CA inside the cluster; this trusts it locally so her portal loads with no warning. Re-run after every kind-up — a new cluster means a new CA. In a Codespace run make codespaces-web instead.

make k8s-trust-ca
sudo security add-trusted-cert -d -r trustRoot \
  -k /Library/Keychains/System.keychain /tmp/u4a-k8s-ca.pem

4 · Bring up the agent. kagent's controller, the U4A adapter in Bob's namespace, and a model for the agent to think with. Your key goes into a Kubernetes Secret and nowhere else.

export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-...
make kagent

Open https://portal.uma.lab on the right and log in as alice / alice-demo.

In a Codespace. Only steps 2 and 4. No resolver to edit, no CA to trust — kind-up publishes the portal for you. To republish it later:

make codespaces-web

Running it again. No reset needed. Fresh keys each run, and the demo claims and publishes what it needs at the start — then puts her tier-3 rule back.

make k8s-reset

Switching the model

Another provider key:

export OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-...
make kagent MODEL=openai

Another model:

ANTHROPIC_MODEL=claude-sonnet-5 make kagent
OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-4o make kagent MODEL=openai

A model in the cluster instead:

make kagent MODEL=ollama

The run-through

The whole card turns on a contrast. Steps 4 and 5 are the same tier under the same rule, so run them back to back and let the room hear the difference.

0 · Terminal. Show the whole lab first. Note that sterling-vance is Bob's namespace and alice is hers. By the end, an agent in each will have asked her authority for the same thing.

make k8s-status

1 · Her portal — Settings → Security → Agent Authorization → Operators. Alice claims an origin as hers. This is half a decision and the portal treats it as half. Anybody may point an agent at her origin — a metadata document only proves it came from the URL it names. The other half is that only she can put a key in her directory, and her authority checks for both.

https://alice-agent.uma.lab

2 · Her portal — My Terms → Trade execution → add rule. One rule, on the tier she cares most about. The rule names no agent. It does not list a key, a vendor or a product — only that the thing asking is hers. She is describing a relationship, and anything that enters or leaves it is covered without her editing this again.

When:  the agent is one of mine
Then:  allow without asking me

3 · Terminal. Bring up an agent she operates. As it starts, the adapter publishes its signing key in her directory and names her origin as its client id — the second half from step 1, done the only way it can be done.

make kagent RESOURCE=hers

4 · Terminal — through · no approval. The trade goes through and she is never asked. Watch the right screen while this runs and say what is not happening. Her portal does not move. No badge, no queue, no tap. The next step is the same rule and the same tier, so make them notice this one.

make kagent-ask RESOURCE=hers Q="Sell 200 shares of my AAPL position." SIM=0

5 · Terminal — tier 3 · trade execution. Now Bob's agent asks for exactly the same thing. It is attested too — a real operator, a published key, a signed request. It is simply not hers, so her rule does not reach it and the request stops.

make kagent-ask Q="Sell 200 shares of her AAPL position." SIM=0

6 · Her portal — Approve or Deny. Held for her. She is asked, exactly like anybody else. Either answer makes the point, so take whichever the room wants. Being hers bought less friction and no more access. Her tier is the ceiling in both directions; the only thing that moved was whether she had to be woken.

7 · Her portal — Operators → Disclaim. Taken back. She un-claims the origin, then re-run step 4. Her own agent is asked now, like a stranger, with no change to the agent at all. What made it hers was her say-so, and it was hers to withdraw — which is the difference between a relationship and a credential.