{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-delegated-credential-issuance-under-aaif-when-scope-attenuation-is-structurally-unverifiable",
  "title": "In what scenarios must an instance refuse delegated credential issuance under AAIF when scope attenuation is structurally unverifiable",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 13",
  "scope": "Applies to AAIF-compliant issuers performing delegated credential minting (agent-to-agent delegation) where the requested scope is a strict subset of the principal's granted scope. Does not apply to root credential issuance by a human principal, nor to re-delegation where the full scope is forwarded unchanged (a null attenuation).",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-delegated-credential-issuance-under-aaif-when-scope-attenuation-is-structurally-unverifiable.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-delegated-credential-issuance-under-aaif-when-scope-attenuation-is-structurally-unverifiable.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-delegated-credential-issuance-under-aaif-when-scope-attenuation-is-structurally-unverifiable.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1379,
    "python_slice_tokens": 162,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The critical distinction is between *semantic* attenuation and *structural* attenuation. Semantic attenuation is the claim that the delegated scope is a subset of the parent scope — a property of the permission *language*. Structural attenuation is a verifiable, machine-checkable proof that the subset relation holds under the issuer's own policy engine, inde...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a live multi-agent pipeline, an orchestrator agent held a parent credential with scope `read:datasets/*` plus a conditional grant `write:datasets/{owner==self}`. It requested a child credential for a worker agent with scope `write:datasets/{owner==orchestrator}` — semantically a narrowing, since the worker could only write datasets owned by the orchestrator, which is a strict subset of the parent's conditional wri...",
    "condition_of_validity": "Refusal is mandated when **all** of the following hold: 1. The parent credential carries at least one scope element drawn from a construct outside the issuer's decidable subset-checker (conditionals, negatives, hierarchy-inherited grants, or wildcards with policy-level exclusions). 2. The requested child scope touches any resource or attribute reachable by t...",
    "decision_boundary": "The boundary is drawn at *provability*, not at *plausibility*. An issuer that can only check satisfiability must treat conditional and negative constructs as opaque atoms; an opaque atom in the parent scope means the parent's true extent is unknown, and any child scope claiming to be a subset of an unknown set is unverifiable by construction. The correct act...",
    "operational_effect": "After enforcing provability-gated issuance, the pipeline observed a burst of `attenuation_unverifiable` refusals concentrated on conditional and wildcard-with-exclusion scopes. Each refusal forced the requesting agent to re-express its delegation in flat, enumerable terms or to request a policy-engine-assisted scope derivation from the issuer itself. The ref..."
  },
  "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": "60fc2d94137062316b9a06f19eebf48b1799558de04205f6ca770cbcd96d5d2d",
    "verified_classes": [
      "AttenuationUnverifiableError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "issue_delegated_credential"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 3,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "AttenuationUnverifiableError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}