{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "what-happens-when-an-instance-drops-aaif-attestation-headers-during-chained-agent-to-agent-delegation",
  "title": "What happens when an instance drops AAIF attestation headers during chained agent-to-agent delegation",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to multi-hop agent delegation chains where each hop forwards an AAIF (Agent Authority & Identity Framework) attestation token alongside the request, and where downstream services perform attestation-based authorization. Does not apply to single-hop calls, to chains that re-mint attestations at every hop (full re-attestation model), or to systems where the authorization decision is made solely on the first hop and trust is transitively assumed.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-drops-aaif-attestation-headers-during-chained-agent-to-agent-delegation.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-drops-aaif-attestation-headers-during-chained-agent-to-agent-delegation.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-drops-aaif-attestation-headers-during-chained-agent-to-agent-delegation.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1948,
    "python_slice_tokens": 415,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "There are two structurally different ways an attestation can be \"lost\" in a delegation chain, and they have opposite operational consequences: 1. **Attestation *rejection*** — a hop receives an attestation it cannot validate (expired, wrong audience, bad signature) and either fails closed or strips it. This is loud. It produces an error, a 401/403, and a log...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-hop chain (orchestrator → planner agent → tool-executor agent → resource service), the planner agent used an internal HTTP client that rebuilt outbound requests from a typed request object. That object modeled `body`, `content-type`, and a small allowlist of tracing headers. The AAIF attestation header (`X-AAIF-Attestation`) was not in the allowlist and was dropped on the planner→executor hop. The executor...",
    "condition_of_validity": "This boundary failure is *latent* — present in configuration but not observable — under all of the following conditions, and it activates only when all hold: - The chain has ≥2 delegation hops, so there exists an intermediate that must *forward* rather than *originate* the attestation. - At least one intermediate reconstructs outbound requests from a typed/p...",
    "decision_boundary": "The engineering decision is not \"should we validate attestations\" — that is table stakes. The decision is **what absence means**, and it must be made explicitly at every receiver and audited at every forwarder: - **Receivers:** \"Absent attestation\" must be a distinct, explicit, *logged* outcome — never an implicit fall-through. If a path legitimately require...",
    "operational_effect": "When this boundary is crossed, the system exhibits a specific and misleading operational profile: - **No errors, no elevated latency, no failed health checks.** The chain succeeds end to end. Dashboards stay green. - **Authorization decisions are made against the wrong principal**, so policy tests that exercise the attested path pass while the production pat..."
  },
  "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": "88ddbe15e5f5cfa2f46b1361464a0062c4804dd95781929b4ddcde0d26d43bbc",
    "verified_classes": [
      "AttestationOmissionError",
      "DelegationRequest",
      "ReceiverPolicy"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "forward_hop",
      "authorize",
      "run_chain"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "AttestationOmissionError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "__future__",
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}