Best Approach for Per-User Authentication with Databricks in an Agent-Based System
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05-28-2026 08:34 AM
Hello everyone,
I have built an ADK-based agent that connects to Databricks and can retrieve various information. However, I’m trying to design a secure way to authenticate each user individually when they interact with the agent.
So far, I see two possible approaches:
Using Personal Access Tokens (PATs)
- I would prefer to avoid this approach because it requires passing PAT tokens, and I don’t want to expose or manage user tokens within the agent.
Using OAuth with a Service Principal
- In this case, we need to use a client_id and client_secret.
- However, this also involves passing sensitive credentials to the agent, which I would like to avoid for security reasons.
Given these constraints, I’m looking for guidance on:
Is there a recommended approach to securely authenticate each user individually in an agent-based architecture without exposing PATs or client secrets?
For example:
- Are there patterns involving SSO, external identity providers, or backend-mediated authentication?
- Has anyone implemented a per-user authentication model in a similar setup?
I’d really appreciate any suggestions or best practices from the community.
Thanks in advance!