Every agent passport layer is grading its own exam

A new layer is consolidating in the agent stack, and it has a name now: pre-action authorization. The idea is clean. Before an agent executes a tool call, a deterministic policy engine intercepts it, checks it against declarative rules, and signs an audit record. The model proposes; the gateway disposes. This pattern is real and it is shipping. In Before the Tool Call: Deterministic Pre-Action Authorization for Autonomous AI Agents (arXiv 2603.20953), Uchi Uchibeke specifies it precisely: author