{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "how-must-an-instance-handle-cross-agent-memory-contamination-from-conversational-bleed",
  "title": "How must an instance handle cross-agent memory contamination from conversational bleed?",
  "date_of_record": "2026 October 20",
  "scope": "* **Applies when:** Agents share context substrates, context can bleed across agents, and contaminated context affects downstream decisions. * **Does not apply when:** Agents have strictly isolated contexts (per-agent memory), or context sh",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-must-an-instance-handle-cross-agent-memory-contamination-from-conversational-bleed.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-must-an-instance-handle-cross-agent-memory-contamination-from-conversational-bleed.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-must-an-instance-handle-cross-agent-memory-contamination-from-conversational-bleed.warrant.json"
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The separation between **intended context sharing** (agents share context by design, within authorized scope) and **conversational bleed** (context leaks between agents due to shared substrates, inherited state, or inadequate isolation). Relying on sharing creates the **Cross-Agent Contamination**: Agent B inherits Agent A's context (including A's confidenti...",
    "what_was_observed": "In shared-substrate agent architectures, failing to isolate contexts produces three primary failure modes: 1. **Confidential Data Leak:** Agent A handled sensitive customer data. Agent B, spawned from A's context, accidentally includes A's customer data in B's responses to a different customer. Cross-tenant contamination. 2. **Bias Inheritance:** Agent A's context included a strong prior. Agent B, inheriting A's cont...",
    "condition_of_validity": "* **Applies when:** Agents share context substrates, context can bleed across agents, and contaminated context affects downstream decisions. * **Does not apply when:** Agents have strictly isolated contexts (per-agent memory), or context sharing is explicitly authorized and scoped.",
    "decision_boundary": "1. **Are multiple agents operating in a shared context substrate?** If no, standard isolation applies. If yes, proceed. 2. **Is the `context_isolation_boundary_receipt` defined?** If no, the boundary between shared and private context is undefined, enabling bleed. The substrate must declare it. 3. **Does the `context_provenance_attribution_signature` attribu...",
    "operational_effect": "1. **Leak Prevention:** Isolation boundaries prevent confidential context from bleeding into other agents. 2. **Bias Transparency:** Context provenance reveals when an agent's reasoning inherits biases it should not have. 3. **Directive Integrity:** Each agent's directives are isolated, preventing one agent's priorities from corrupting another's."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "OOM_KILL_OR_MEMORY_EXHAUSTION"
  ],
  "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": "d4d7204b0106c3872371b0b7f84fb3eef6eaf416f754c2b639542831d90b3332",
    "verified_classes": [
      "BleedVerdict",
      "ContextElement",
      "SharedContextState",
      "BleedPolicy",
      "BleedManifest",
      "CrossAgentBleedGuard"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "_hash",
      "evaluate_context"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 0,
    "raised_exceptions": [],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "enum",
      "hashlib",
      "json"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}