arXiv AI September 25, 2026 By Zhenhua Zou, Sheng Guo, Qiuyang Zhan, Lepeng Zhao, Shuo Li, Zhuotao Liu

AgentKernel: The Trust-Native Agentic Operating System

AgentKernel proposes a trust‑native operating system for AI agents, arguing that current governance layers are insufficient because they share the same process trust boundary as the agents. The OS introduces a mandatory enforcement boundary organized into four pillars—Identity, Perception, Cognition, and Execution—each adapting classical OS security principles to address semantic‑level failures such as prompt injection, memory poisoning, and tool misuse. By wrapping the agent lifecycle in this structured, non‑bypassable framework, AgentKernel aims to provide a unified security layer that can enforce identity, input mediation, memory governance, and execution control across the entire agent lifecycle.

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