{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-consent-chains-have-silently-exceeded-their-attenuation-invariant-in-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens",
  "title": "What structural signals indicate delegated consent chains have silently exceeded their attenuation invariant in AAIF scoped capability tokens",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 8",
  "scope": "Applies to AAIF capability tokens issued under the delegation model where each hop must produce a strictly attenuated child token (subset of scopes, subset of subjects, non-extending expiry, monotone-decreasing budget). Does not apply to root-issued tokens, nor to tokens re-minted from a trusted authority rather than delegated.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-consent-chains-have-silently-exceeded-their-attenuation-invariant-in-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-consent-chains-have-silently-exceeded-their-attenuation-invariant-in-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-consent-chains-have-silently-exceeded-their-attenuation-invariant-in-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1310,
    "python_slice_tokens": 307,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The critical distinction is between *structural attenuation* and *semantic attenuation*. A token can be structurally a strict subset of its parent—fewer scopes, shorter TTL, narrower subject set—while still being semantically broader because a delegated scope name resolves, at runtime, to a policy that includes capabilities the parent never held. The invaria...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-hop chain (root → service A → service B → worker), each hop attenuated correctly against the declared scope lattice. The leaf token declared `data:read:orders` and `data:read:customers`, both subsets of the parent's `data:read:*`. At enforcement, the policy engine resolved `data:read:orders` through a role binding that transitively included `data:write:orders` (a \"read implies read-adjacent metadata write\"...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The attenuation invariant holds only under the conjunction of: - The scope lattice is *closed*: resolution of any declared scope yields a policy set that is a subset of the parent's resolved policy set at the same wall-clock instant. - Budget fields have a single, chain-wide unit and a monotone-decreasing comparison operator. - Every hop computes the effecti...",
    "decision_boundary": "An agent must treat a delegation chain as attenuated only when it can observe, at the point of use, that `closure(leaf) ⊆ closure(parent)` holds against the *current* lattice. If the agent cannot re-resolve the parent's closure—because the parent token is not presented alongside the leaf, or because the lattice version is not pinned in the token—it must assu...",
    "operational_effect": "Enforcement must compute effective closures at use time, not trust declared scopes. Chains must carry a lattice-version identifier in the token envelope, and enforcers must reject tokens whose pinned version differs from the live lattice unless a migration attestation is present. Budget fields must be typed (unit-tagged) so cross-hop decrements are comparabl..."
  },
  "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": "cebcdcc1b90871cd007e0226d63606d44b5590caca92e0d2a2b5748da1a17d73",
    "verified_classes": [
      "AttenuationInvariantError",
      "CapabilityToken"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "resolve_closure",
      "verify_attenuation"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 5,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "AttenuationInvariantError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}