The honest framing: An agent acting for you is convenient, and it is a delegation of authority. Both things are true, so it is worth being deliberate.
What makes it safer here: An agent gets its own verifiable identity rather than borrowing yours. Its permissions state what it may do and for how long, they trace back to you as the authorizer, and you can revoke them at any moment.
Why that is different from an API key: A traditional access key is typically broad and long-lived, which makes it hard to monitor and easy to forget. Web4 treats this whole category — the Synthetic Web — as something to govern rather than to block.
Practical advice: Grant the narrowest scope that does the job. Set the shortest lifetime you can live with. Review the list periodically and revoke what you no longer use. Do not point an agent at your Core ID when an alias will do.
How to provision one: Individuals and organizations issue single- or multi-use provisioning tokens from the Agent Factory, rather than sharing a static secret.
Where: uiid.me