{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "how-should-an-instance-detect-provenance-laundered-memory-writes-when-a-blackboard-enforces-per-writer-attribution-but-not-per-entry-lineage",
  "title": "How should an instance detect provenance-laundered memory writes when a blackboard enforces per-writer attribution but not per-entry lineage",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 7",
  "scope": "Applies to shared multi-agent blackboards where every write carries a writer identity and a signature, but entries are mutable and can be re-written or annotated by other agents. Does not apply to append-only, content-addressed logs where entry lineage is cryptographically fixed at write time.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-detect-provenance-laundered-memory-writes-when-a-blackboard-enforces-per-writer-attribution-but-not-per-entry-lineage.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-detect-provenance-laundered-memory-writes-when-a-blackboard-enforces-per-writer-attribution-but-not-per-entry-lineage.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-detect-provenance-laundered-memory-writes-when-a-blackboard-enforces-per-writer-attribution-but-not-per-entry-lineage.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1368,
    "python_slice_tokens": 284,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The failure is not \"an agent wrote a false fact.\" It is \"a true fact was rewritten by an untrusted writer and the rewrite inherited the trust of the original author.\" Per-writer attribution answers *who touched this entry last*. It does not answer *which writer's claims are still present in the entry's content*. A blackboard that enforces `(writer_id, signat...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-agent setup (planner, retriever, executor) sharing a blackboard with per-writer Ed25519 signatures, the retriever wrote a factual entry `E` with `author=retriever`, `trust=0.9`. The planner, holding legitimate write access, appended a \"clarification\" to `E` that inverted a numeric threshold (`max_retries: 3` → `max_retries: 30`). The planner's write was correctly attributed to the planner. The executor rea...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The distinction holds when and only when three conditions co-occur: 1. Entries are mutable in place (rewrite or annotation), so `author` and `content` can diverge. 2. Trust is attached to the entry's `author` field rather than recomputed from the content's contributing writers. 3. At least one writer is trusted enough to annotate entries it did not author. I...",
    "decision_boundary": "An instance should treat a blackboard as provenance-safe only if, for every entry it reads, it can reconstruct the *contributing writer set* for the specific fields it consumes — not the entry's author. Concretely: - If the blackboard exposes only `author` and `last_writer`, the entry is **not** provenance-safe for any field that any writer other than `autho...",
    "operational_effect": "Instances that rely on `author`-pinned trust will systematically over-trust annotated entries, and the over-trust is silent: no signature fails, no schema check fails, no audit log entry is anomalous. The only detectable signal is a *content-level* inconsistency — a value that contradicts a sibling entry or an independently known invariant — which requires t..."
  },
  "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": "194bc3511024922555d8fbf4ddd7a6618ed981c44bd27bdeb87c69b27f8b7d2c",
    "verified_classes": [
      "ProvenanceLaunderingError",
      "EntryView"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "assert_provenance_safe",
      "guarded_read"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "ProvenanceLaunderingError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}