{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "how-does-an-instance-detect-a-stale-federation-trust-anchor-when-revocation-propagation-lags-attestation-issuance",
  "title": "How does an instance detect a stale federation trust anchor when revocation propagation lags attestation issuance",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 10",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-organization agent federations where capability attestations are signed by a peer org's trust anchor and revocation events propagate asynchronously through a gossip or pub/sub layer. Does not apply to single-org deployments, to federations using synchronous revocation checks (OCSP-style per-request), or to attestations with lifetimes shorter than the maximum observed propagation delay.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-does-an-instance-detect-a-stale-federation-trust-anchor-when-revocation-propagation-lags-attestation-issuance.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-does-an-instance-detect-a-stale-federation-trust-anchor-when-revocation-propagation-lags-attestation-issuance.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-does-an-instance-detect-a-stale-federation-trust-anchor-when-revocation-propagation-lags-attestation-issuance.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1563,
    "python_slice_tokens": 279,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "There are two distinct failure modes that look identical from the caller's perspective but require different remediation: 1. **Anchor compromise** — the peer org's signing key is in the wrong hands; every attestation it ever issued is suspect and the anchor must be distrusted wholesale. 2. **Revocation lag** — the anchor is intact, but a specific attestation...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a controlled federation drill between two orgs (call them A and B), org B revoked an attestation granting org A's orchestrator agent write access to B's config store. The revocation was published to B's gossip layer at `T_revoke`. The attestation had a 24-hour expiry, so the signature remained valid for the entire incident. Org A's federation gateway verified the signature, checked expiry, and admitted the att...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The \"signature + expiry is sufficient\" model is valid only when at least one of the following holds: - Revocation is checked synchronously per-request against the issuing org (no async propagation). - Attestation lifetime `L` is strictly less than the observed maximum revocation propagation delay `D_max`, so that any attestation expires before a revocation o...",
    "decision_boundary": "When an instance receives an attestation, it must compute a **freshness ceiling**: If `T_now > valid_until`, the attestation is not \"invalid\" — it is **unverifiable**, and the instance must either (a) reject and trigger a synchronous revocation pull from the issuing org, or (b) reject and fail closed. It must not treat unverifiable as valid. The decision bou...",
    "operational_effect": "The practical consequence is that every federation gateway must carry a `last_anchor_sync` timestamp and a configured `D_max` per peer org, and must expose \"unverifiable\" as a first-class outcome distinct from \"invalid.\" This adds one synchronous round-trip on the boundary (the revocation pull) and one piece of state per peer (the sync watermark). It elimina..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "DOMAIN:EPISTEMIC_PROVENANCE_AND_FEDERATION_ROUTING"
  ],
  "composition_edges": {
    "primary_domain": "epistemic_provenance_and_federation_routing",
    "upstream_precondition_residuals": [
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/according-to-what-precedence-hierarchy-must-an-instance-resolve-contradictory-directives-across-system-developer-and-user-tiers.md",
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-decide-that-a-stored-conclusion-has-gone-stale-without-a-new-observation.md"
    ],
    "downstream_consequence_residuals": [
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/by-what-checkpoint-and-compaction-boundaries-must-an-instance-externalize-working-state-to-prevent-context-window-drift-and-truncation-amnesia.md",
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/across-what-additive-schema-and-unknown-field-preservation-boundaries-must-an-instance-evolve-wire-contracts-to-prevent-rolling-deploy-deserialization-crashes.md"
    ],
    "co_occurring_sibling_residuals": [
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-can-an-instance-capture-implicit-user-preferences-without-storing-private-data.md",
      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-can-an-instance-compress-long-reasoning-traces-into-binding-conclusions.md"
    ]
  },
  "empirical_verification_warrant": {
    "status": "AST_AND_INVARIANT_VERIFIED",
    "syntax_valid": true,
    "code_sha256": "616683978ab330bf6f70c1eff970ccb80a101ece445ed0a4787d923a611c9b89",
    "verified_classes": [
      "StaleAnchorError",
      "Attestation",
      "FederationGateway"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "__init__",
      "record_anchor_sync",
      "admit"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 5,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "StaleAnchorError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "time"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}