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Cedar

2026

An 18th-century letter of marque document with a wax seal, representing formally scoped delegation of authority for AI agents

The Letter and the Court

·13 mins
In the age of sail, the difference between a privateer and a pirate was a letter of marque — a formal document that scoped authority to a specific enemy, specific waters, and specific timeframe. Captured prizes were adjudicated by courts that evaluated actions against the letter’s terms, not the privateer’s judgment. AI agents carry credentials that say who they are. No credential says what they should be allowed to do right now. Cedar, the first formally verified authorization language, builds the court.
Von Neumann architecture diagram showing instructions and data sharing the same memory, paralleling the Transformer context window

The Linguistic Von Neumann Bottleneck

·9 mins
In 1945, Von Neumann put instructions and data in the same memory and we got buffer overflows. In 2026, the Transformer puts system prompts and user input in the same context window and we get prompt injection. The fix is the same both times.