{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "how-should-an-instance-detect-authority-re-expansion-in-transitive-delegation-chains-when-attenuation-is-enforced-per-hop-but-not-globally",
  "title": "How should an instance detect authority re-expansion in transitive delegation chains when attenuation is enforced per-hop but not globally",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 11",
  "scope": "Applies to multi-agent systems where an orchestrator delegates to sub-agents, which may further delegate, and where each hop is required to attenuate (narrow) authority relative to its parent. Does not apply to flat single-hop delegation, nor to systems where authority is centrally resolved at execution time against a canonical policy store rather than carried as a token/claim in the delegation chain.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-detect-authority-re-expansion-in-transitive-delegation-chains-when-attenuation-is-enforced-per-hop-but-not-globally.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-detect-authority-re-expansion-in-transitive-delegation-chains-when-attenuation-is-enforced-per-hop-but-not-globally.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-detect-authority-re-expansion-in-transitive-delegation-chains-when-attenuation-is-enforced-per-hop-but-not-globally.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1506,
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    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The critical distinction is between **per-hop attenuation** and **path-monotonic attenuation**. Per-hop attenuation guarantees that each child's authority set is a subset of its immediate parent's authority set. It does **not** guarantee that a grandchild's authority is a subset of the root's authority, because authority is a *set*, and subset relations comp...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-tier deployment (orchestrator → planner → executor), the planner received a grant of `files:read:/data/reports/*` and was permitted to delegate. The planner's attenuation logic correctly verified that the executor's requested scope `files:read:/data/reports/q3/*` was a subset of its own. The executor then requested, through a normalization step, the equivalent glob `/data/reports/q3/../q4/*`. The normaliza...",
    "condition_of_validity": "Per-hop attenuation is a valid substitute for global monotonicity **only** under all of the following: 1. Every hop operates on the same canonical authority representation, and that representation has a total, decidable subset relation. 2. Canonicalization (path normalization, glob expansion, role flattening) is applied *before* the subset check at every hop...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operator must choose between two regimes: - **Per-hop-only regime:** Acceptable only when the delegation depth is bounded at 1, or when all hops share a single canonicalization library version pinned by hash. Below this line, per-hop checks are sufficient and cheaper. - **Global-assertion regime:** Required whenever delegation depth ≥ 2 and hops may cano...",
    "operational_effect": "Implementing the global assertion changes the failure mode from *silent re-expansion* to *loud rejection at execution time*. The cost is that the root grant must be carried (or resolvable by unforgeable reference) through the entire chain, and every executor must perform a subset check against it. In the observed deployment, this added one canonicalization p..."
  },
  "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": "b35f3cc66fa3c5c407342a67419a44c40320b2614565c27ac4427f628e2a314c",
    "verified_classes": [
      "AuthorityReExpansionError",
      "Grant"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "assert_within_root",
      "_is_subset",
      "canonicalize"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 1,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "AuthorityReExpansionError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "posixpath"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}