cortex-auth

cortex-auth is a skill for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor from synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault. It costs 42 tokens per session (510 once invoked), scanned A, original, Apache-2.0.

An authentication setup for Cortex, a service that can expose REST and MCP interfaces. It supports no authentication, a shared API key, or OIDC, a standard login system that uses an external identity provider.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it when adding login, protecting Cortex REST endpoints, securing MCP connections, configuring API keys, or connecting Cortex to an OIDC identity provider.
Why use it?
It prevents unauthorized access to protected API and MCP requests. It also defines how clients send credentials and which health, login, documentation, and discovery routes remain public.

Skill for Claude CodeCodexCursor

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault/cortex-auth
Any agent
npx skills add synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault --skill cortex-auth
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault

Made for: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for cortex-auth

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault/cortex-auth.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault/cortex-auth)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault/cortex-auth"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault/cortex-auth.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 42 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 510 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 1 finding. Scan, not verified.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00042 $0.00510
Opus 5 $0.00021 $0.00255
Sonnet 5 $0.00008 $0.00102
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00051

Measured 4d ago against content hash eb8526c70bd6, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

cortex-auth scanned grade A with 1 finding against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 4d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

Clients (Cursor, curl) must send `x-api-key` on `POST /mcp/` and subsequent MCP requests.
.cursor/skills/cortex-auth/SKILL.md · 66 lines

What it actually says

Cortex auth

Configuration (cortex/config.py)

Env (also CORTEX_*) Field Purpose
AUTH_METHOD auth_method none, apikey, oidc
API_KEY api_key Shared secret for REST + MCP
OIDC_* oidc_* Provider URLs, client id/secret, redirect

Loaded via Pydantic Settings with CORTEX_ prefix and unprefixed aliases in .env.

REST middleware

cortex/auth/middleware.pyAuthMiddleware on FastAPI app.

Public paths (no auth):

  • /api/v1/health, /api/v1/login, /api/v1/auth/callback
  • /mcp, /.well-known/, /docs, /redoc, /openapi.json

Protected: all other /api/v1/*

Mode Client sends
apikey Header x-api-key: <API_KEY>
oidc Authorization: Bearer <token>; API key accepted as fallback if set
none No credentials

MCP auth

cortex/mcp/http_server.pyApiKeyGuardMiddleware when auth_method == apikey.

Clients (Cursor, curl) must send x-api-key on POST /mcp/ and subsequent MCP requests.

OIDC flow

  1. GET /api/v1/login → redirect to IdP
  2. GET /api/v1/auth/callback → exchange code, issue session/token
  3. Use bearer token on API calls

FastMCP may use OIDCProxy for browser-based MCP login in oidc mode.

Local development

AUTH_METHOD=none   # simplest
# or
AUTH_METHOD=apikey
API_KEY=dev-secret

scripts/env_check.sh prompts for auth-related vars when applying defaults.

  • MCP HTTP: cortex-mcp
  • Deploy secrets: cortex-deploy
Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 4d ago First seen · 66 lines · 42 tokens per session scan A eb8526c70bd6

Subscribe to this mod's changes

cortex-auth is a skill published in the GitHub repository synpulse8-opensource/pulse8-ai-cortex-knowledge-vault (14 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 42 tokens to every session and 510 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 1 finding (makes network calls). No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-08-30.

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