{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-reject-a-capability-grant-whose-scope-silently-widens-under-delegation-chaining",
  "title": "In what scenarios must an instance reject a capability grant whose scope silently widens under delegation chaining",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 8",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-org multi-agent federation where Agent A (Org 1) delegates a task to Agent B (Org 2), which may re-delegate to Agent C (Org 3) under a capability token minted at the first hop. Does not apply to single-org delegation, to flat capability models with no transitive attenuation, or to systems where every hop re-authenticates the principal end-to-end.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-reject-a-capability-grant-whose-scope-silently-widens-under-delegation-chaining.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-reject-a-capability-grant-whose-scope-silently-widens-under-delegation-chaining.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-reject-a-capability-grant-whose-scope-silently-widens-under-delegation-chaining.warrant.json"
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  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1436,
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    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious invariant is this: **a capability grant that is valid at each individual hop can be invalid in aggregate when the delegation chain is composed.** Most federation protocols validate attenuation per-hop — Agent B checks that the token it received from A permits the action B takes, and B mints a token for C that is a subset of B's. Each signatur...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a three-org federation trial, Org 1 granted Agent A a capability `task.delegate(scope=documents:read, max_hops=3)`. Agent A delegated to Agent B with `documents:read` narrowed to a specific collection `Q3-financials`. Agent B, whose local scope algebra treats collection filters as *advisory hints* rather than *enforcement predicates* (a documented but easily-missed property of B's capability dialect), re-deleg...",
    "condition_of_validity": "Per-hop attenuation checking is sound **if and only if** all orgs in the chain share a common scope algebra — a single partial order on scope expressions such that `s1 ⊑ s2` is decidable and means the same thing to every party. Under that condition, subset-of-subset is subset, and chain-intent validity follows by transitivity. The condition fails whenever an...",
    "decision_boundary": "An agent instance must reject the composed grant — not merely log it — when any of the following holds at the point of accepting a delegated token: 1. The token's provenance chain includes a hop whose scope dialect is not in the instance's declared compatible-algebra set. 2. The token carries a collection/attribute filter but the issuing hop's dialect marks ...",
    "operational_effect": "Instances that enforce this boundary will reject a measurable fraction of otherwise-valid delegations — roughly those crossing an org boundary with a non-shared scope dialect. The operational cost is false rejections; the operational benefit is that no chain can silently widen scope. The correct remediation is not to relax the boundary but to require the ori..."
  },
  "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": "042764981d4c6a1fc2be17f84137b95dedd1adba5194801155a5f91b5277ce25",
    "verified_classes": [
      "CapabilityChainWideningError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "accept_delegated_capability"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "CapabilityChainWideningError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}