Enterprise-Managed Authorization
Enterprise-Managed Authorization answers which agents may reach which tools, for which users in one place: the enterprise identity provider. Without it, every MCP server becomes its own authorization island with its own consent screen.
The primary scenario is pre-built clients you do not control (Claude Code, VS Code, Cursor, and similar) talking to third-party MCP servers and APIs you do not protect with Descope (HubSpot, Asana, Linear, Canva, and so on), over a standard protocol such as MCP. Descope is the IdP those clients sign into.
That is not the only way to use the Hub. For building MCP servers (MCP Auth), building agents (Agent Auth SDK), and governing agents internally (XAA or gateway), see Use cases.
Connecting to third-party servers
For that pre-built-client → third-party-server case, there are two main ways to connect:
Cross App Access (XAA)
Descope mints a short-lived XAA token (ID-JAG). The third-party authorization server validates it. Nothing sits between the agent and the tool.
Gateway
A gateway sits in the request path. Descope governs authorization; Connections hold credentials. Use when the target lacks XAA — or when you want gateway security controls XAA does not provide.
Cross App Access (XAA)
Cross App Access (XAA) reuses the SSO trust the enterprise already has. The identity provider that signed the user in also vouches, in a short-lived signed JWT, that this user, through this client, may reach this resource. The client presents that JWT to the resource's authorization server and receives a normal access token in return.
That JWT is the XAA token, formally an Identity Assertion JWT Authorization Grant (ID-JAG).
XAA also applies when the client is Claude (or similar) and the MCP server is yours — Descope can be both issuer and validator. See Use cases → Governing agents internally.
Gateway
Note
This feature is in early access, and must be enabled by Descope Support for your project.
A gateway sits between the pre-built agent and third-party tools. Descope remains the IdP and policy decision point; Connections hold the downstream credentials.
Choose a gateway when:
- The third-party does not support Cross App Access (most servers today), or
- You want capabilities XAA alone does not give you — for example prompt-injection detection, centralized inspection of tool calls, unified audit, or tenant-scoped credential routing through one entrypoint.
We work out of the box with agentgateway, or you can bring your own gateway and configure it to use Descope as a PDP.
- Overview: Manage agents → Enforce with a Gateway
- Build guide: MCP Gateways
Hosting an MCP server for your customers?
If you host an MCP server that other enterprises connect to, each customer manages their agents with their XAA-compatible workforce IdP, and Descope accepts those customers' XAA tokens for your server.
That setup lives with tenant SSO and the SSO Setup Suite.
See Let customers manage their agents and Cross App Access for B2B MCP Servers.