Alter Launches Access Control for Multi-User Agents
Alter, a YC S25 startup, has launched an access-control proxy for multi-user agents that manages downstream credentials, ties actions to end-user identity, and enforces runtime policies and audit logs. It offers a free tier up to 10,000 requests and paid usage beyond that.
According to the post, founders Srikar and Kevan built Alter after seeing how difficult it is to add secure multi-user authorization to agents in regulated industries. They described a common pattern: employees sign in to an internal agent through Slack with their own accounts, but the agent connects to a CRM or billing system using one shared API key, so the agent can do anything that key can do. User-level Slack authentication does not control what the agent does in the external system, they wrote.
Alter acts as a proxy and manages downstream credentials for every API request an agent makes. The founders said it takes the end user's identity into account for each action, enforces fine-grained runtime policies and records compliance-grade audit logs. The product supports hundreds of providers, all manually tested end to end, and is designed to let developers build agents as they see fit while adding custom policies, agent delegation, user attribution and audit logs. An LLM gateway with guardrails is listed as coming soon.
Alter's business model is usage-based. There is a free tier up to 10,000 requests and a paid tier beyond that, according to the post. The founders also published a demo video and an OpenClaw plugin they said they used to build a multi-user OpenClaw for their own team, which they said saved countless hours on go-to-market work.
They cited other deployments: startups using Alter for internal agents ranging from site reliability engineering to back-office work with QuickBooks and payroll platforms such as Rippling, and a defense contractor building air-gapped agents for the Marine Corps.
On security, the founders said they have adopted shift-left practices, with every pull request continuously checked for supply-chain attacks and potentially dangerous code patterns. Srikar said he previously worked at Goldman Sachs and saw how expensive it was for a developer to write custom authentication for multi-tenancy and strict policy controls. Kevan is a second-time founder who previously worked on a database startup and has experience building and selling deep technology into highly regulated environments.
Alter is positioning itself as a separate product category for developers who need to build secure multi-user agents that can take actions inside enterprises, the founders wrote. They asked developers who have built agents that act for multiple users how they handle permissions today and what they have had to build themselves.