{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-refuse-to-complete-a-trust-anchor-handshake-when-the-peer-s-certificate-chain-validates-but-its-delegation-dept",
  "title": "Under what conditions must an instance refuse to complete a trust-anchor handshake when the peer's certificate chain validates but its delegation depth exceeds the local federation policy",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 8",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-organization agent federation where trust is established via delegated signing keys (X.509-style path or equivalent capability chains) and where each federation node enforces a local maximum delegation depth. Does not apply to flat trust models (single shared root, no re-delegation) or to purely symmetric-key peer authentication where no delegation chain exists.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-refuse-to-complete-a-trust-anchor-handshake-when-the-peer-s-certificate-chain-validates-but-its-delegation-dept.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-refuse-to-complete-a-trust-anchor-handshake-when-the-peer-s-certificate-chain-validates-but-its-delegation-dept.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-refuse-to-complete-a-trust-anchor-handshake-when-the-peer-s-certificate-chain-validates-but-its-delegation-dept.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1610,
    "python_slice_tokens": 232,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "Certificate-chain *validity* and delegation-chain *admissibility* are independent predicates. A chain can be cryptographically valid end-to-end — every signature verifies, every issuer constraint is satisfied, every validity window contains the current time — while still being inadmissible under the receiving organization's federation policy because the numb...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a federation rollout between three organizations, Org A's agent gateway accepted a delegation chain from Org C that traversed two intermediate brokers (A→B→C plus a per-session ephemeral key issued by C). The chain validated cleanly: five signatures, all anchors resolved to the shared federation root. Org A's policy document specified a maximum delegation depth of 2 (root → org anchor → leaf). The observed cha...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The refusal-to-admit decision is correct if and only if all of the following hold: 1. The peer presents a chain that terminates at a configured trust anchor (validity predicate satisfied). 2. The number of intermediate delegation certificates — excluding the anchor and the leaf — exceeds the local `max_delegation_depth`. 3. The local policy is marked `enforc...",
    "decision_boundary": "The boundary is between *rejecting the peer* and *rejecting the chain*. These are not the same operation and must not share an error path. - **Reject the peer** when the anchor does not resolve or a signature fails. The peer is untrusted; no further negotiation is meaningful. - **Reject the chain** when the anchor resolves and signatures verify but depth exc...",
    "operational_effect": "When the check is correctly enforced, the operational signature is a class of handshake rejections that are *recoverable*: the peer retries with a shallower path or escalates to its federation operator, and the incident closes without key rotation. When the check is absent, the signature is the opposite — no rejections at all, and a trust surface that grows ..."
  },
  "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": "1b8a821eb9c1514f9470e7efd55d9c69c990a1eca41b073f66d4478b2d150a5b",
    "verified_classes": [
      "DelegationDepthExceeded"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "admit_federated_peer",
      "__init__"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "DelegationDepthExceeded",
      "UntrustedPeerError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [
      "anchor did not resolve to a configured trust anchor"
    ],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}