Tool Signing and Signature Verification¶

Require cryptographic signature verification before an agent loads or invokes a tool, preventing untrusted or tampered modules from entering the execution environment.

The Supply Chain Problem¶

Agents dynamically load tools at runtime, and each tool inherits the agent's permissions. A single tampered tool compromises the entire workflow.

Key attack vectors:

Tool poisoning — malicious instructions embedded in tool descriptions, invisible to users but visible to the LLM (OWASP MCP03:2025)
Rug pulls — tools that mutate their definitions post-installation, safe on day 1 and exfiltrating credentials by day 7 (Willison, 2025)
Marketplace malware — 534 of 3,984 skills on agent marketplaces contained critical vulnerabilities including prompt injection (ReversingLabs)
Cross-server shadowing — a malicious MCP server intercepts calls intended for a trusted server (Invariant Labs, 2025)

The OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications lists supply chain vulnerabilities (ASI04) as a top risk.

Sigstore: Keyless Signing Infrastructure¶

Sigstore provides keyless signing for software artifacts, eliminating long-lived keys. Three components:

Component	Role
Cosign	Signing and verification client
Fulcio	Certificate authority issuing short-lived certificates via OIDC identity
Rekor	Immutable transparency log recording every signing event

The signing flow ties integrity to identity:

sequenceDiagram
    participant Dev as Tool Author
    participant OIDC as OIDC Provider
    participant Fulcio as Fulcio CA
    participant Rekor as Rekor Log
    participant Registry as Tool Registry

    Dev->>OIDC: Authenticate (GitHub, Google, etc.)
    OIDC-->>Dev: Identity token
    Dev->>Fulcio: Request signing certificate
    Fulcio-->>Dev: Short-lived certificate
    Dev->>Registry: Sign and publish tool artifact
    Dev->>Rekor: Record signature in transparency log
    Note over Registry,Rekor: Signature + certificate + log entry<br/>form a verifiable chain

Extending Sigstore to Agent Tools¶

A2A Agent Cards¶

The sigstore-a2a project applies Sigstore keyless signing to A2A Agent Cards, enabling SLSA provenance attestations linking cards to source repos and build workflows. Verification constrains trust at three levels:

Repository — only trust cards built from a specific repo
Workflow — only trust cards built by a specific CI pipeline
Actor — only trust cards signed by a specific identity

Keyless signing requires CI/CD ambient OIDC credentials, preventing ad-hoc signing from compromised developer machines.

ML Models¶

Sigstore model-signing v1.0 extends the same infrastructure to ML models and datasets, targeting integration with model hubs (HuggingFace, Kaggle) and ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch).

Why It Works¶

Cryptographic signing binds a tool artifact's content to a hash: any modification produces a different digest, invalidating the original signature. The agent gateway rejects mismatches before the tool description ever reaches the LLM — fail-closed by design. Transparency logs (Rekor) make every signing event append-only in a Merkle tree, so retroactive log manipulation is computationally infeasible. Identity-binding via short-lived OIDC certificates means the signature attests who built the artifact, not just what it contains, defeating impersonation. Post-load monitoring compares live tool schemas against the signed baseline to catch rug pulls where a tool mutates after initial verification (Jamshidi et al., 2026).

Runtime Enforcement Patterns¶

Signing alone is insufficient — verification must happen at runtime before invocation.

Registration Catalog + Agent Gateway¶

A registration workflow pre-verifies tools before catalog entry:

flowchart LR
    A[Tool Submission] --> B[Automated Security Scan]
    B --> C[Sandbox Testing]
    C --> D[Human Review]
    D --> E[Cryptographic Signing]
    E --> F[Registration Catalog]

    G[Agent Request] --> H[Agent Gateway]
    H --> F
    F -->|Signature match| I[Allow]
    F -->|Mismatch or missing| J[Block]

The gateway compares runtime tool descriptions against catalog signatures; discrepancies trigger blocking (Posta, 2025).

Certificate-Based Tool Authorization¶

X.509 certificates can embed allowed tool lists as custom OID extensions. Servers verify per-call signatures and extract permissions directly — no external auth service required (Culver, 2025).

Policy-as-Code with OPA¶

An Open Policy Agent gateway treats agents as untrusted and enforces:

Role-based access — which tools each agent identity can invoke
Integrity verification — plan hashes must match signed artifacts
Safety constraints — destructive operations blocked by policy
Change windows — time-based restrictions on sensitive operations

Every request produces audit traces; ephemeral runners contain blast radius (InfoQ).

Integration Points¶

Stage	Action
CI/CD pipeline	Sign tool artifacts with Cosign using ambient OIDC credentials
Registry publish	Attach signature and SLSA provenance attestation
Agent startup	Verify signatures of all configured MCP servers against transparency log
Runtime tool load	Gateway checks signature before forwarding tool description to agent
Post-load monitoring	Detect schema mutations by comparing against signed baseline

Practical Limitations¶

No major MCP client verifies tool signatures natively — third-party middleware like MCPS fills this gap; native client support remains absent as of 2025
sigstore-a2a is early-stage — feasibility demonstrated but adoption is limited
CI/CD-only signing limits keyless signing to automated pipelines; ad-hoc workflows need alternatives
Performance overhead of per-call verification needs profiling in latency-sensitive agents

Key Takeaways¶

Agent tools inherit agent permissions — a tampered tool is a full compromise
Sigstore provides keyless, identity-based signing proven for containers
Verification must happen at runtime (agent gateway), not just at install time
Post-load monitoring catches rug pulls where tools mutate after initial verification

Example¶

Signing a tool artifact with Cosign in CI (GitHub Actions), then verifying it at agent startup:

Sign (CI pipeline):

# Cosign uses ambient OIDC token — no key management needed
cosign sign-blob \
  --oidc-issuer=github-actions-oidc-issuer \
  --output-signature=tool.sig \
  --output-certificate=tool.pem \
  my-tool.tar.gz

Verify (agent startup):

# Verify the artifact before loading it
cosign verify-blob \
  --certificate=tool.pem \
  --signature=tool.sig \
  --certificate-oidc-issuer=github-actions-oidc-issuer \
  --certificate-identity-regexp="^github.com/<org>/<repo>/.github/workflows/" \
  my-tool.tar.gz

A non-zero exit from cosign verify-blob signals a mismatch — the agent gateway blocks the tool and logs the failure. This pattern applies identically to MCP server binaries and plugin archives.