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Architecture

Steward is the single chokepoint between an AI agent and the outside world. Every API call, every transaction, every secret access flows through Steward, gets policy-checked, gets logged, gets metered.

Three Pillars

Wallet Vault

Encrypted key storage with policy-enforced signing. Agents never see private keys.

Secret Vault

Encrypted credential storage with an API proxy. Agents never see API keys.

Policy Engine

Declarative policy evaluation on every action. Default deny.

High-Level Flow

Request Flow: API Proxy

When an agent makes an API call (e.g., to OpenAI):

Request Flow: Wallet Signing

When an agent needs to sign a transaction:

Deployment Topology

Agent containers can be firewalled to only reach the Steward proxy. Even if fully compromised, an agent cannot exfiltrate data to arbitrary endpoints.

Multi-Tenant Isolation

Steward is multi-tenant by design:
  • Tenants are isolated at the database level — each tenant’s agents, secrets, and policies are scoped
  • Agents authenticate with JWTs scoped to their tenant and agent ID
  • Secrets are encrypted with per-tenant encryption keys (key hierarchy: master → tenant → secret)
  • Policies are evaluated per-agent within their tenant context

Tech Stack

ComponentTechnology
API ServerHono on Bun
DatabasePostgreSQL (Neon)
EncryptionAES-256-GCM with Argon2id key derivation
EVM Signingviem
Solana Signing@solana/web3.js
ORMDrizzle
SDKTypeScript, zero dependencies