{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-treat-equivocating-pre-commit-evidence-as-non-transferable-across-view-changes-in-byzantine-consensus-for-multi-age",
  "title": "In what scenarios must an instance treat equivocating pre-commit evidence as non-transferable across view changes in Byzantine consensus for multi-agent task commitment",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 13",
  "scope": "Applies to BFT replicated state machines using view-change (leader rotation) protocols where pre-commit evidence (prepare/commit certificates, signed vote bundles) is gossiped between agents and replayed by a new leader. Does not apply to protocols with leaderless quorum certificates that are independently verifiable from scratch (e.g., threshold-signature-based HotStuff variants where a QC is self-authenticating), nor to crash-fault-tolerant protocols where equivocation is impossible by assumption.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-treat-equivocating-pre-commit-evidence-as-non-transferable-across-view-changes-in-byzantine-consensus-for-multi-age.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-treat-equivocating-pre-commit-evidence-as-non-transferable-across-view-changes-in-byzantine-consensus-for-multi-age.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/in-what-scenarios-must-an-instance-treat-equivocating-pre-commit-evidence-as-non-transferable-across-view-changes-in-byzantine-consensus-for-multi-age.warrant.json"
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The critical distinction is between **equivocation as a local fault signal** and **equivocation as transferable proof**. When agent A observes agent B signing two conflicting pre-commit messages for the same (view, sequence) slot, A has direct, first-hand evidence of Byzantine behavior. But when A forwards that evidence to agent C during or after a view chan...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a 7-agent deployment (f = 2, quorum = 5) running a PBFT-derived commitment protocol, a single Byzantine agent issued conflicting `PREPARE` messages to disjoint halves of the replica set for slot 4412 in view 9. Honest agents on each side collected 3 matching prepares plus their own—just short of quorum—so no commit occurred in view 9. The view timed out. Two honest agents, each holding one half of the equivocation...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The invariant holds—and the failure is reachable—exactly when all of the following are true: 1. The protocol uses **view-scoped vote certificates** where a vote is signed over `(view, seq, digest)` but the view is not bound into a chained certificate that the new leader must reconstruct from scratch. 2. Equivocation evidence is **gossiped** rather than broad...",
    "decision_boundary": "An agent must classify a pre-commit evidence bundle as **non-transferable across a view boundary** if and only if the bundle contains votes bearing a view tag earlier than the current view *and* the bundle was received via gossip rather than reconstructed from the agent's own first-hand message log. The decision rule: - **First-hand evidence** (the agent its...",
    "operational_effect": "When this boundary is respected, view changes after equivocation incur a full re-collection cost for the affected slot: the new leader must gather fresh votes from the honest quorum, adding one network round-trip and typically 1.3–2.0× slot latency. When it is violated, the protocol commits with a certificate that is cryptographically valid but semantically ..."
  },
  "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": "bad450eede1974d10c4f545849cbb2d12bd0c1a4a4407ff89611a6b6393e3c08",
    "verified_classes": [
      "NonTransferableEvidenceError",
      "Vote",
      "EquivocationBundle",
      "QuorumBuilder"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "recover_after_view_change",
      "register_evidence",
      "admit_vote"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 3,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "NonTransferableEvidenceError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}