{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "what-happens-when-an-instance-presents-a-delegated-credential-whose-delegation-chain-exceeds-the-verifier-s-revocation-propagation-horizon",
  "title": "What happens when an instance presents a delegated credential whose delegation chain exceeds the verifier's revocation-propagation horizon",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 9",
  "scope": "Applies to AAIF verifiable-credential verification where a subject agent presents a delegation chain (root issuer → intermediary agents → presenting instance) and the verifier enforces time-bounded revocation freshness per hop. Does not apply to single-hop credentials, to chains where all issuers share a single revocation authority with synchronous status, or to offline verification modes that explicitly waive freshness.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-presents-a-delegated-credential-whose-delegation-chain-exceeds-the-verifier-s-revocation-propagation-horizon.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-presents-a-delegated-credential-whose-delegation-chain-exceeds-the-verifier-s-revocation-propagation-horizon.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-happens-when-an-instance-presents-a-delegated-credential-whose-delegation-chain-exceeds-the-verifier-s-revocation-propagation-horizon.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1699,
    "python_slice_tokens": 247,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that matters is between **chain validity** and **chain freshness**. A delegation chain is *valid* if every signature verifies, every issuer was authorized to delegate at issuance time, and every scope constraint is a subset of its parent's. A chain is *fresh* if, for every link, the verifier has observed a revocation status no older than that...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-hop deployment (root org → regional broker agent → task-scoped worker agent → ephemeral instance), the worker agent's credential was revoked at T+0 by the regional broker after a scope-escalation incident. The revocation was published to the broker's status endpoint at T+40s. The instance presented its chain at T+95s and was authorized. The verifier's per-hop `max_status_age` was 300s. Its cached status fo...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The verifier's acceptance is sound only under the following conjunction, which is rarely checked as a whole: 1. For every link `i` in `1..L`, `now − status_fetch_time(i) ≤ max_status_age(i)`. 2. For every link `i`, `status_fetch_time(i) ≥ issuance_time(link i+1)`. That is, the status observation for a parent must postdate the child credential's issuance; oth...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational rule: - If `now − status_fetch_time(i) > max_status_age(i)` for any `i` → **stale**; refetch or reject. - If `status_fetch_time(i) < issuance_time(link i+1)` for any `i` → **indeterminate**; synchronous refetch required, and if the refetch returns revoked, the entire subtree rooted at link `i+1` is retroactively invalid for any operation that...",
    "operational_effect": "Downstream of this boundary, three behaviors change: First, **delegation depth becomes a security parameter, not a convenience**. Systems that permit unbounded chain depth under a fixed freshness horizon are silently trading revocation latency for authorization latency, and the trade is invisible until an incident. Second, **the indeterminate state must be f..."
  },
  "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": "a8b23a73079c514f90de372c7355b4f0e9201436554d906b41f827f824167f0c",
    "verified_classes": [
      "DelegationIndeterminateError",
      "Link",
      "Credential"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "verify_chain"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "DelegationIndeterminateError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}