{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-task-delegation-across-a-federation-trust-boundary-when-the-peer-s-policy-digest-matches-but-its-negotiation",
  "title": "In what scenarios must an instance refuse task delegation across a federation trust boundary when the peer's policy digest matches but its negotiation epoch is stale",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 13",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-org multi-agent federations that negotiate capability and policy via signed digests with monotonically increasing epochs, and where inter-domain task routing may reuse a cached authorization decision across multiple requests. Does not apply to single-org deployments, nor to federations using stateless per-request renegotiation with no decision cache.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-task-delegation-across-a-federation-trust-boundary-when-the-peer-s-policy-digest-matches-but-its-negotiation.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-task-delegation-across-a-federation-trust-boundary-when-the-peer-s-policy-digest-matches-but-its-negotiation.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-refuse-task-delegation-across-a-federation-trust-boundary-when-the-peer-s-policy-digest-matches-but-its-negotiation.warrant.json"
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "A policy *digest* answers \"what does the peer claim its rules are?\" A negotiation *epoch* answers \"as of when does the peer assert that claim is current?\" These are independent facts. The common failure is treating digest equality as sufficient authorization: peer B presents digest `D`, local cache holds an entry keyed on `D` with a prior positive decision, ...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-org federation (A routes, B executes, C supplies sub-capabilities to B), A cached a \"delegate to B\" decision keyed on B's policy digest after a successful negotiation at epoch 41. B later rotated a sub-agent credential and incremented to epoch 42 while re-emitting the byte-identical policy digest (the rotation was recorded in B's key registry, not its policy document). A's router hit the cache, matched the...",
    "condition_of_validity": "A cached cross-boundary delegation decision remains valid only when all three hold: (1) presented digest equals cached digest, (2) presented epoch equals the epoch recorded *at decision time* (not merely \"is >= cached\", since a peer may roll back to a re-signed earlier state), and (3) the cached decision's TTL has not elapsed. If (1) holds but (2) fails, the...",
    "decision_boundary": "Refuse delegation (raise, do not delegate) when digest matches but epoch is *strictly less than* the cached epoch — this indicates replay or a rolled-back peer state and is not recoverable by renegotiation alone. Renegotiate (do not refuse, do not delegate) when epoch is *strictly greater than* cached — the peer is plausibly current and simply needs to re-co...",
    "operational_effect": "Instrumenting the epoch dimension turned the silent-drop class into a detectable, bounded-latency event: forced renegotiation adds one round trip (~15ms in-region) but converts an eventual 40-minute timeout into an immediate, attributable renegotiation. Cache hit rate dropped ~7%, which is the correct price. The operational rule: **a cache keyed on policy di..."
  },
  "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": "1c7d37a0b80c9f687db5ab9fd6233f04454a12b41e70c9fdb7011d4fb2f1d0fc",
    "verified_classes": [
      "StaleEpochDelegationError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "authorize_delegation"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 1,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "StaleEpochDelegationError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}