# agent-registry

Source: https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/agent-registry/
Last updated: 2026-11-05
License: content by Start with Identity. Cite the source URL.

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An agent registry is an inventory of the AI agents an organization runs or allows, recording for each one its identity, accountable human owner, purpose, permissions, creation and expiry, so that agents can be reviewed, governed and deprovisioned like any other identity. No open standard defines one yet: SWI's [Agent Identity Standards Map 2026](https://startwithidentity.com/reports/agent-identity-standards-map-2026/) rates the agent lifecycle registry as the one agent identity problem with no working-group draft at all, after two individual SCIM agent extension drafts expired.

What exists today is product-specific. Microsoft's [agent registry in the Microsoft 365 admin center](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-agent-365/admin/agent-registry-overview) "provides a centralized view of all agents available for your organization" to monitor and govern them, and [Okta](https://startwithidentity.com/vendors/iam/okta/) [describes](https://www.okta.com/newsroom/press-releases/okta-brings-first-class-identity-to-ai-agents-with-agent-sso/) Okta for AI Agents as discovering unregistered and shadow agents and assigning them named human owners. The [W3C Agent Identity Registry Protocol Community Group](https://www.w3.org/community/agent-identity/) has formed but published no drafts. Without a registry, agents become the orphaned, over-privileged identities that the OWASP Non-Human Identities Top 10 ranks first and fifth. Until a standard lands, put agents into your existing [non-human identity](https://startwithidentity.com/guides/machine-identity/non-human-identity-security/) inventory with an owner, a purpose and an expiry date.

See also: [agentic identity](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/agentic-identity/), [non-human identity](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/nhi/), [orphaned account](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/orphaned-account/), [deprovisioning](https://startwithidentity.com/glossary/deprovisioning/), [Shared Signals Framework](https://startwithidentity.com/standards/shared-signals-framework/), [AI identity vendors](https://startwithidentity.com/vendors/ai-identity/)