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Engineering14 January 2026·3 min read

Modal is building AI infrastructure that doesn't get in the way

Most of the difficulty with agents is not the model.

Paycux engineering

Most of the difficulty with agents is not the model. It is that an agent sits between a user and a system that was designed on the assumption a user would be there in person.

This piece walks through how we think about it at Paycux, what we have changed our minds about, and where the sharp edges are.

Function as a Service, but for heavy compute

That brings us to function as a service, but for heavy compute. Consent is the part most implementations get wrong. Asking once at install time and then acting indefinitely is not consent; it is a standing grant with no expiry and no visibility.

Consent is the part most implementations get wrong. Asking once at install time and then acting indefinitely is not consent; it is a standing grant with no expiry and no visibility.

Where the revenue actually is

Where the revenue actually is is where this gets concrete. An agent's credential should describe what it may do, not who owns it. Scope it to the narrowest set of operations that make the task possible, bind it to a single principal, and give it a lifetime measured in minutes rather than days.

An agent's credential should describe what it may do, not who owns it. Scope it to the narrowest set of operations that make the task possible, bind it to a single principal, and give it a lifetime measured in minutes rather than days.

  • Scope every agent credential to one principal and one task
  • Give tokens minutes of life, not days
  • Record which agent acted, under whose authority, on what
  • Make revocation a single call that takes effect immediately

Consent is the part most implementations get wrong.

The use cases that surprised him

That brings us to the use cases that surprised him. Consent is the part most implementations get wrong. Asking once at install time and then acting indefinitely is not consent; it is a standing grant with no expiry and no visibility.

Consent is the part most implementations get wrong. Asking once at install time and then acting indefinitely is not consent; it is a standing grant with no expiry and no visibility.

Where this leaves us

None of this is exotic. It is the ordinary discipline of deciding what you own, writing down what you assume, and making the failures loud enough to notice.

If you are working through the same problem and want to compare notes, the docs cover the mechanics and the console shows the behaviour on your own data.

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