{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "how-does-an-instance-detect-trust-tier-downgrade-during-cross-org-capability-negotiation-when-a-peer-s-advertised-manifest-is-internally-consistent-bu",
  "title": "How does an instance detect trust-tier downgrade during cross-org capability negotiation when a peer's advertised manifest is internally consistent but stale",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 11",
  "scope": "Applies to federated multi-agent systems where each participating organization exposes a capability manifest signed by a trust authority and routing decisions are made against a locally cached tier assignment. Does not apply to single-org agent meshes or to federation topologies where trust tier is renegotiated per-request rather than cached per-peer.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-does-an-instance-detect-trust-tier-downgrade-during-cross-org-capability-negotiation-when-a-peer-s-advertised-manifest-is-internally-consistent-bu.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-does-an-instance-detect-trust-tier-downgrade-during-cross-org-capability-negotiation-when-a-peer-s-advertised-manifest-is-internally-consistent-bu.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-does-an-instance-detect-trust-tier-downgrade-during-cross-org-capability-negotiation-when-a-peer-s-advertised-manifest-is-internally-consistent-bu.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1796,
    "python_slice_tokens": 187,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The failure mode is not a forged manifest and not a missing manifest. It is a *stale but valid* manifest: the peer's signed capability document is cryptographically sound, internally consistent (every capability it advertises is backed by a declared endpoint and a declared scope), and passes signature verification against the trust authority's published key....",
    "what_was_observed": "During a federation negotiation between org A (initiator) and org B (responder), instance `A-neg-7` completed a capability handshake with `B-cap-3` and routed a batch of privileged operations to it at tier `elevated`. The routing was correct *at the time the manifest was cached* — `B-cap-3` had been elevated 14 hours earlier. The authority had demoted `B-cap-3` to `standard` 40 minutes before the negotiation, after a...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The stale-manifest acceptance is valid (i.e., the instance is *correctly* accepting the peer) only while all of the following hold: - The manifest's signature verifies against a key the authority has not revoked. - The manifest's declared `tier_hint` matches the tier the authority assigned at the manifest's `issued_at` epoch. - The local tier cache's `fetche...",
    "decision_boundary": "An instance must refuse to route at a tier higher than `standard` when any of the following is true, and must emit a `StaleTierManifestError` rather than proceed: - `now - cache.fetched_at > authority.max_staleness(peer.current_tier_band)` where `current_tier_band` is the band implied by the cached tier. - The authority ledger epoch observed by the instance ...",
    "operational_effect": "Implementing the per-band freshness boundary changes federation behavior in three measurable ways: 1. Elevated-tier negotiations acquire a hard dependency on a low-latency ledger feed. Instances that previously negotiated elevated work with only a manifest cache must now subscribe to the tier-assignment stream or accept a `StaleTierManifestError` and downgra..."
  },
  "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": "c6e7b786454ea07e250e5b5d731a491415d65e467c76727d78ac0a3e856efff4",
    "verified_classes": [
      "StaleTierManifestError",
      "TierCacheEntry",
      "AuthorityPolicy"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "assert_tier_routable",
      "staleness_window"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "StaleTierManifestError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "datetime"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}