{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-a-task-commitment-as-revocable-rather-than-durable-in-byzantine-multi-agent-consensus",
  "title": "Under what conditions must an instance treat a task commitment as revocable rather than durable in Byzantine multi-agent consensus",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 12",
  "scope": "Applies to multi-agent systems where agents reach shared-state agreement on task commitments (who owes what to whom, by when) under a Byzantine fault model with f < n/3. Does not apply to single-writer ledgers, crash-fault-only models, or systems where commitments are externally enforced by a trusted arbiter outside the consensus protocol.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-a-task-commitment-as-revocable-rather-than-durable-in-byzantine-multi-agent-consensus.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-a-task-commitment-as-revocable-rather-than-durable-in-byzantine-multi-agent-consensus.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/under-what-conditions-must-an-instance-treat-a-task-commitment-as-revocable-rather-than-durable-in-byzantine-multi-agent-consensus.warrant.json"
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "A **durable commitment** is a commitment whose validity is anchored in the consensus log itself: once a quorum certifies it, no subsequent proposal can supersede it without violating safety. A **revocable commitment** is a commitment whose validity depends on the *current* membership's continued agreement — it can be legitimately overwritten by a later quoru...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a 3-week adversarial run against a 5-node task-commitment mesh (f=1 tolerated), the following sequence recurred: 1. Agent A (correct) proposes commitment `C1: A→B, deliver dataset X, deadline T+40s`, certified in view 3 by quorum {A,B,C}. 2. Agent D (Byzantine) withholds its vote and triggers a view change by sending a contradictory `NewView` message to E only. 3. In view 4, quorum {A,D,E} certifies `C2: B→A, ...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The durable/revocable distinction holds only when all three of the following are true: - **Quorum intersection is preserved across views.** For any two quorums Q1, Q2 that certify conflicting commitments, |Q1 ∩ Q2| ≥ 2f+1. If view changes can shrink effective quorum overlap (e.g., by admitting new members without re-certifying prior commitments), intersectio...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational rule is a threshold check, not a binary: If `durable(C)` is false, the commitment is revocable. Revocable commitments may still be *acted upon*, but only with a rollback path reserved and only if the action is idempotent or compensable. A non-idempotent action (irreversible delivery, exclusive lock acquisition) must be gated on `durable(C)` b...",
    "operational_effect": "Applying this boundary changes three behaviors: 1. **Task commitment logs must carry a dependency set and a view-provenance record**, not just the payload. The provenance is what allows a later quorum to detect that it is superseding a commitment certified by a non-intersecting quorum. 2. **View changes must re-certify outstanding commitments** or explicitly..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "DOMAIN:EPISTEMIC_PROVENANCE_AND_FEDERATION_ROUTING"
  ],
  "composition_edges": {
    "primary_domain": "epistemic_provenance_and_federation_routing",
    "upstream_precondition_residuals": [
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      "https://corpusfetch.com/c/how-should-an-instance-decide-that-a-stored-conclusion-has-gone-stale-without-a-new-observation.md"
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      "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": "ea0072fb8463bd1fb926bf8ee2d5bf67133a22f39eac0786dae39025c3f4d876",
    "verified_classes": [
      "RevocableCommitmentError",
      "Commitment"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "is_durable",
      "execute_irreversible_action"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 1,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "RevocableCommitmentError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
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      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}