Blog
Demos, implementation guides, product updates and broader takes on authorization, identity and security. Written for the engineers, architects, security, identity and product leaders shaping how their teams ship and govern access.
Policy-driven MCP routing: enforcing tool gates outside the agent
Telling an agent which tools not to use is a request, not a control. Here is how to gate MCP tool calls with policy enforced outside the agent, at the execution boundary.
Full guide to Next.js authorization & authentication
Next.js has two main patterns of authentication. Meanwhile when it comes to authorization, nothing is as simple as adding Cerbos. Read our full guide.
Open source Cerbos vs paid Cerbos
Open source vs paid Cerbos explained. The Apache 2.0 engine is complete and free, running over 2 billion checks a month. See what the commercial platform adds around it, policy distribution, compliance audit, and data enrichment, plus the roughly 19 engineer months it takes to build the equivalent yourself.
Delegated authorization: Why acting on behalf of someone else is not a role
Delegated authorization explained. Why modeling on-behalf-of access as a role loses the subject, the approver and the expiry. Covers the RFC 8693 act claim, delegation versus impersonation, AuthZEN and COAZ, multi-party policy conditions, revocation before expiry, and audit lineage for delegated actions.
MCP server vetting checklist for enterprises
Every MCP server you connect is a third party you have handed an agent a door to. Here is a practical checklist for vetting MCP servers and governing the ones you cannot fully trust.
Authorizing MCP tool calls at the gateway or inside the proxy, and what each one stops
Two ways to authorize MCP tool calls, in the request path or inside the proxy, and they stop different things. Covers in-path gateway enforcement against a pre-call hook, why denying a tool and hiding a tool are different security properties, fail closed behavior, and where both shapes stop working.
Envoy ext_authz: enforcing one authorization policy at the gateway and in the service
Envoy external authorization with the ext_authz filter lets the gateway and the service run checks against one policy set. This guide covers the CheckRequest to Cerbos mapping in CEL, policy outputs as request headers, embedded versus external PDP, bypass paths, caching trade offs and what AuthZEN leaves undefined.
Cerbos PDP v0.55.0: Strict evaluation mode, multiple JWTs, and faster conditions
Cerbos PDP v0.55.0 adds strict evaluation mode, which turns runtime errors in policy conditions into explicit denials instead of silent skips. This release also lets auxData carry multiple named JWTs, folds constant expressions at compile time, and upgrades CEL with 21 new expression functions for networking, regex, and sets.
What's new in Cerbos Hub: audit log exports and a playground that tells you what's wrong
A rundown of the latest Cerbos Hub updates. Audit log exports you can pull into your own tooling for archiving or compliance, playground compiler errors with line and column detail, schema validation on principal and resource fixtures, and egress IPs for GitHub allow lists.
MCP authorization standards: OAuth scopes, AuthZEN, and what's still missing
MCP leans on OAuth 2.1 for authentication, but OAuth scopes cannot answer fine-grained tool authorization. Here is what the standards cover, and what AuthZEN adds.
Mapping business requirements to authorization policy
Learn about how to map your business requirements to RBAC and ABAC policies and adopt Cerbos
What is an MCP gateway? And where authorization actually fits
An MCP gateway routes and manages traffic to MCP servers, but routing is not authorization. Here is what a gateway does, where the authorization gap is, and how to close it.
Mapping business requirements to authorization policy for gaming
Mapping business requirements to authorization policy for gaming, with three worked examples covering player profiles and inventory, virtual asset trading, and moderation actions. Each starts with the business rule and ends with a working Cerbos policy, including derived roles, ABAC conditions, and test cases you can run yourself.
Cerbos security and trust: Data handling, certifications, and deployment isolation
How Cerbos handles your data, where it lives, and what leaves your network. A security and trust overview for CISOs and security teams evaluating Cerbos, covering the stateless PDP, deployment isolation, local field masking, certifications, penetration testing, and the Cerbos Trust Center.
Framework for evaluating authorization providers and solutions
In this guide, we provide a framework for evaluating authorization providers and solutions, tailored to the priorities of enterprise decision-makers. We cover all the key criteria - from integration and performance to admin experience and compliance, and back them with data, industry research, and success metrics.
Best OpenZiti alternatives
Picking an OpenZiti alternative depends on the layer you need to replace. Compare ZTNA and overlay networking, self-hosted identity providers, OAuth2 and OIDC token services, and reverse proxy login gateways, plus where Cerbos handles fine-grained authorization once identity and connectivity are already solved.
Your IdP proves who an AI agent is. DORA expects you to control what it does
Your IdP proves who an AI agent is. DORA also expects you to control what it can do at runtime, which is authorization, not authentication. This guide covers where agents fall into DORA scope, how runtime authorization maps to Article 9 and audit requirements, and the steps to take while agents are still early.
Authentik vs Zitadel for authentication
Compare Authentik and Zitadel for authentication. Decide faster across SSO, MFA, proxy mode, LDAP, multi-tenancy, deployment, operations, and where Cerbos authorization fits.
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