This how-to continues from Set up a Kong Identity auth server for AI Agent authentication. Complete that how-to first, you need its $ISSUER_URL, $CLIENT_ID, and $CLIENT_SECRET to create the AI Auth Strategy.
Secure AI Agent traffic with an AI Auth Strategy and Kong Identity
Incompatible with
on-prem
Related Documentation
In This Series
Related Resources
Minimum Version
AI Gateway - 2.0
Previous Versions of this page
TL;DR
Create an openid-connect AI Auth Strategy that points at a Kong Identity auth server’s issuer URL and client credentials, then reference it in an AI Agent entity’s access.auth_strategies array.
Requests without a valid bearer token are rejected with a 401. Authenticated requests are proxied to the upstream A2A agent.
Prerequisites
Series Prerequisites
This page is part of the Secure AI Agent A2A traffic with Kong Identity series.
Complete the previous page, Set up a Kong Identity auth server for AI Agent authentication before completing this page.
kongctl v1.13.0+
This tutorial uses kongctl to manage Konnect resources programmatically. We recommend keeping kongctl up to date with the latest version (1.13.0).
- Install kongctl from developer.konghq.com/kongctl.
-
Verify the installation:
kongctl version
OpenAI API key
- Create an OpenAI account.
- Get an API key.
- Export your key:
export OPENAI_API_KEY='YOUR_OPENAI_API_KEY'
A2A agent
You need a running A2A-compliant agent. This guide uses a sample KongAir travel agent that uses OpenAI and LangGraph to answer flight route queries.
Create a docker-compose.yaml file:
cat <<'EOF' > docker-compose.yaml
services:
a2a-agent:
container_name: a2a-kongair-agent
image: ghcr.io/tomek-labuk/a2a-kongair-openai-agent:1.0.0
environment:
- OPENAI_API_KEY=${OPENAI_API_KEY}
- OPENAI_MODEL=gpt-5-mini
- KONGAIR_BASE_URL=https://api.kong-air.com
- PUBLIC_AGENT_URL=http://localhost:10000
ports:
- "10000:10000"
EOFStart the agent:
docker compose up -d --waitThe agent listens on port 10000 and uses the A2A JSON-RPC protocol to handle flight route queries. In this guide, the gateway service points to host.docker.internal:10000 instead of the container name because Kong Gateway runs in its own container with a separate DNS resolver.
Create an AI Auth Strategy and AI Agent
Create an openid-connect AI Auth Strategy that uses Kong Identity as the issuer, and an AI Agent that references it through access.auth_strategies.
kongctl apply -f - --auto-approve --pat "$KONNECT_TOKEN" << 'EOF'
ai_gateway_auth_strategies:
- ref: identity-oidc
ai_gateway: !lookup {id: !env AI_GATEWAY_ID}
display_name: "Identity OIDC"
name: identity-oidc
type: openid-connect
config:
issuer: !env ISSUER_URL
client_id:
- !env CLIENT_ID
client_secret:
- !secret {source: !env CLIENT_SECRET}
auth_methods:
- bearer
scopes:
- a2a-access
cache_tokens_salt: identity-oidc-cache-salt
ai_gateway_agents:
- ref: kongair-flight-booking-agent
ai_gateway: !lookup {id: !env AI_GATEWAY_ID}
display_name: "Kong Air Flight Booking Agent"
type: a2a
enabled: true
access:
auth_strategies:
- !ref identity-oidc#name
config:
url: http://host.docker.internal:10000
route:
paths:
- /a2a
methods:
- GET
- POST
protocols:
- http
- https
strip_path: true
logging:
payloads: false
statistics: true
max_request_body_size: 8388608
EOFAll requests to the /a2a route now require a valid bearer token from Kong Identity.
Validate unauthenticated requests are rejected
Send an A2A request without a token:
curl -X POST "$KONNECT_PROXY_URL/a2a" \
--no-progress-meter --fail-with-body \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
--json '{
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": "1",
"method": "message/send",
"params": {
"message": {
"kind": "message",
"messageId": "msg-001",
"role": "user",
"parts": [
{
"kind": "text",
"text": "What flights are available on route KA-123?"
}
]
}
}
}'The request fails with 401 Unauthorized.
Validate authenticated requests succeed
Generate a token for the client and export it:
ACCESS_TOKEN=$(curl -X POST "$ISSUER_URL/oauth/token" \
--no-progress-meter --fail-with-body \
-H "Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded" \
-d "grant_type=client_credentials" \
-d "client_id=$CLIENT_ID" \
-d "client_secret=$CLIENT_SECRET" \
-d "scope=a2a-access" | jq -r ".access_token"
)Send the A2A request with the token:
curl -X POST "$KONNECT_PROXY_URL/a2a" \
--no-progress-meter --fail-with-body \
-H "Content-Type: application/json"\
-H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
--json '{
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"id": "1",
"method": "message/send",
"params": {
"message": {
"kind": "message",
"messageId": "msg-001",
"role": "user",
"parts": [
{
"kind": "text",
"text": "What flights are available on route KA-123?"
}
]
}
}
}'AI Gateway validates the bearer token against Kong Identity, then proxies the request to the upstream A2A agent. A successful response (status 200) contains the agent’s reply.
Cleanup
Stop the A2A agent
docker compose down
docker rm -f a2a-kongair-agentClean up AI Gateway resources
To clean up all AI Gateway resources created in this guide, run:
curl -Ls https://get.konghq.com/ai | bash -s -- -dClean up Kong Identity resources
curl -X DELETE "https://us.api.konghq.com/v1/auth-servers/$AUTH_SERVER_ID?force=true" \
--no-progress-meter --fail-with-body \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KONNECT_TOKEN"\
-H "Content-Type: application/json"FAQs
Does OpenID Connect interfere with the AI Agent entity’s A2A protocol handling?
No. The AI Agent entity handles A2A protocol detection, agent-card rewriting, and observability. The AI Auth Strategy runs independently in the access phase, before any A2A-specific processing.
Can I use a different identity provider instead of Kong Identity?
Yes. The openid-connect AI Auth Strategy type works with any OIDC-compliant identity provider (Okta, Keycloak, Auth0, Azure AD, and others). Replace issuer, client_id, and client_secret with values from your provider.
Can I combine OpenID Connect with ACLs on the same AI Agent?
Yes. access.acls on the AI Agent restricts which AI Consumers or AI Consumer Groups can reach it. The AI Auth Strategy authenticates the caller first, then ACLs decide whether that identity is allowed through.