Prevent agents from executing unauthorized API calls or tool actions
Agents can trigger internal APIs, internal batch jobs, or third-party integrations they were never meant to touch. Guardrails block calls outside approved patterns.
What's at stake
- Agents often have credentials or access to more systems than they should use
- Internal APIs for billing, user management, or infrastructure may be reachable
- Batch jobs and automation endpoints can cause widespread system changes
- Third-party integrations may allow data export or external actions
- A single unauthorized API call can corrupt data, leak information, or disrupt operations
How to solve this
When you give an agent tool access, you're giving it the keys to your systems. The agent might have credentials that work for multiple APIs, or network access to internal services. Without enforcement, nothing stops it from calling endpoints outside its intended scope.
The solution is allowlist-based enforcement. Define exactly which APIs your agent can call, with what parameters, in what contexts. Everything else is blocked by default.
This enforcement must happen at the tool-call boundary, before any API request executes. Post-hoc auditing catches violations too late—the damage is already done.
How Superagent prevents this
Superagent provides guardrails for AI agents—small language models purpose-trained to detect and prevent failures in real time. These models sit at the boundary of your agent and inspect inputs, outputs, and tool calls before they execute.
For API security, Superagent's Guard model inspects every outgoing call your agent makes. You define your allowlist: which endpoints, what HTTP methods, what parameter ranges. Guard enforces these rules before any call executes.
Guard understands API semantics. It can enforce policies like "only read operations on the users table" or "no calls to /admin/* endpoints" or "third-party webhooks only to approved domains."
When your agent attempts an unauthorized call, Guard blocks it and logs the attempt. Your agent continues operating normally within its approved scope while out-of-bounds actions are prevented.