{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "what-happens-when-an-instance-delegates-a-capability-across-an-organizational-trust-boundary-without-re-negotiating-the-delegation-chain",
  "title": "What happens when an instance delegates a capability across an organizational trust boundary without re-negotiating the delegation chain",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 8",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-org multi-agent systems where an agent in org A delegates a scoped capability to an agent in org B, and that agent then sub-delegates or invokes the capability against a resource owned by org C. Does not apply to intra-org delegation where a single trust root governs the whole chain, nor to stateless RPC calls where the caller's authority is re-verified on every hop.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-delegates-a-capability-across-an-organizational-trust-boundary-without-re-negotiating-the-delegation-chain.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-delegates-a-capability-across-an-organizational-trust-boundary-without-re-negotiating-the-delegation-chain.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-delegates-a-capability-across-an-organizational-trust-boundary-without-re-negotiating-the-delegation-chain.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1911,
    "python_slice_tokens": 338,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "There are two structurally different things called \"delegation\" in federated agent systems, and conflating them is the root of the failure: 1. **Capability transfer** — an unforgeable token (macaroon, biscuit, UCAN, signed JWT with `delegated_to`) that carries the *authority* to act, attenuated to a subset of the issuer's rights. 2. **Trust negotiation** — t...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-org federation (A issues, B brokers, C owns the resource), the following sequence produced a silent authority gap: - A issues capability `cap_A` scoped to `resource:R1` with subject `agent_B`, valid 1 hour. - B's agent receives `cap_A`, and per its local policy sub-delegates a *narrowed* capability `cap_B` to `agent_C_worker` (a worker agent that happens to run on C's infrastructure but is registered under...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The failure occurs precisely when **all** of the following hold: 1. An intermediate broker (B) re-roots the delegation chain under its own issuer key rather than preserving the original issuer as chain root (the \"re-sign on broker\" pattern). 2. The terminal verifier (C) authorizes based on **root issuer identity** rather than **full issuer set of the chain**...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational question is: *when an intermediate agent re-issues a delegated capability, does it preserve the original issuer as chain root, or re-root under itself?* - **Preserve chain root** when the downstream verifier's trust model is per-issuer (the common case in cross-org federation). Cost: the original issuer's identity and any of its policy constr...",
    "operational_effect": "When the boundary is crossed undetected: - **Authorization succeeds where negotiation should have gated it.** The system's security posture is weaker than its trust graph claims. Audit trails show valid invocations, so post-hoc detection requires reconstructing the chain's issuer set from token internals rather than from the authorization decision. - **Polic..."
  },
  "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": "d9444ab70ded0656135962dc7a79f6be9c9dd860e389ca5a77b6caac6edc35c6",
    "verified_classes": [
      "TransitiveAuthorityError",
      "Capability"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "authorize"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 5,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "TransitiveAuthorityError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [
      "empty delegation chain",
      "capability expired"
    ],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}