{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "how-should-an-instance-handle-the-revocation-propagation-gap-during-short-lived-credential-rotation-across-federated-orgs",
  "title": "How should an instance handle the revocation propagation gap during short-lived credential rotation across federated orgs",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to federated agent identity systems where a credential authority (CA/issuer) in one org issues short-lived tokens (minutes to hours) consumed by relying parties in other orgs, and where revocation is signaled out-of-band (CRL, OCSP-like, or revocation list replication). Does not apply to single-org deployments with a shared trust root and synchronous revocation checks, nor to long-lived credentials where TTL exceeds revocation propagation latency by a wide margin.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-handle-the-revocation-propagation-gap-during-short-lived-credential-rotation-across-federated-orgs.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-handle-the-revocation-propagation-gap-during-short-lived-credential-rotation-across-federated-orgs.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-handle-the-revocation-propagation-gap-during-short-lived-credential-rotation-across-federated-orgs.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1777,
    "python_slice_tokens": 349,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious failure is not \"revocation is slow.\" It is that **short-lived credential rotation and revocation propagation are two clocks running in opposite directions, and the system's safety margin is their difference, not either one alone.** A credential with TTL `T` expires naturally after `T`. A revocation event at time `t0` becomes effective at rely...",
    "what_was_observed": "Across a three-org federation (issuer A, relying parties B and C), credentials had `T = 15 min`. Revocation list replication ran on a 5-minute poll with a 60-second jitter, giving `P ≈ 5–6 min` under nominal conditions. This looked safe: `P < T` with margin. Two failure modes surfaced: 1. **Clock skew inversion.** Relying party C had a `+7 min` clock offset (undetected because NTP was blocked in its network segment a...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The safety claim \"short TTL bounds exposure\" holds only when all of the following are simultaneously true: - `P + max_clock_skew + cache_staleness < T` (strict, with margin). - The rotation path and the revocation path are **serialized through the same authority state**, or rotation independently re-checks revocation before issuing. - Relying parties evaluat...",
    "decision_boundary": "An instance must decide, per credential class, between two postures: - **Fail-closed on revocation uncertainty:** if the relying party cannot confirm the credential is unrevoked within the freshness budget (e.g., last successful revocation poll older than `P_max`), it rejects. This is correct when the action guarded is irreversible or high-value. - **Fail-op...",
    "operational_effect": "Concretely, the federation above added three controls: (1) relying parties reject credentials whose local-clock-derived remaining lifetime exceeds `T` (catching positive skew), (2) rotation is gated on a revocation-state read at the issuer with the same freshness budget as relying parties, and (3) the revocation poll exposes its last-success timestamp, and h..."
  },
  "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": "983968bb27a05724722be1eaf0c0040f88e07e2596e1a9c555c3639cca59e693",
    "verified_classes": [
      "RevocationPropagationGapError",
      "RotationLaundersRevocationError",
      "Credential",
      "RevocationState"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "authorize_action",
      "remaining_lifetime"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 5,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "RevocationPropagationGapError",
      "RotationLaundersRevocationError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "time"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}