{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-credential-confusion-in-aaif-agent-identity-issuance-and-revocation",
  "title": "What structural signals indicate delegated credential confusion in AAIF agent identity issuance and revocation",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 7",
  "scope": "Applies to AAIF delegated credential chains where an agent (the *delegate*) presents a credential issued by another agent or principal (the *delegator*) under a scoped authorization grant, and to the revocation propagation path for those credentials. Does not apply to root principal credentials, machine-to-machine client-credential flows without delegation, or bearer tokens that carry no issuer-scoped `act`/`sub` chain.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-credential-confusion-in-aaif-agent-identity-issuance-and-revocation.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-credential-confusion-in-aaif-agent-identity-issuance-and-revocation.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/what-structural-signals-indicate-delegated-credential-confusion-in-aaif-agent-identity-issuance-and-revocation.warrant.json"
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  "token_profile": {
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The failure mode is not \"revocation is slow\" or \"a credential was stolen.\" It is **delegation-depth confusion**: the system cannot distinguish between (a) a credential whose *subject* is the agent presenting it, and (b) a credential whose *subject* is the delegator and whose *actor* is the presenting agent. In AAIF, a delegated credential carries both `sub` ...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a multi-hop delegation deployment (principal → orchestrator agent → worker agent → tool-invoking sub-agent), a revocation was issued against the orchestrator's credential after a policy violation. The revocation record was keyed on the orchestrator's `sub` claim. Expected behavior: every credential downstream of the orchestrator (the worker's delegated credential, the sub-agent's delegated credential) becomes inva...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The distinction holds only when the following are all true: 1. The delegation chain is at least two hops deep. Single-hop delegation has no subtree to leak, and `sub`-keyed revocation is sufficient because `sub` and the credential identity coincide. 2. The enforcement point validates against a cache or a revocation list that is keyed on credential identity (...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational decision is: **on a revocation event, do you invalidate by principal or by path?** Choose **by path** when: - Delegation depth ≥ 2, or - Any enforcement cache exists, or - The revoked credential's authority is itself the basis for downstream issuance (i.e., the revoked hop is an issuer in some other credential's chain). Choose **by principal*...",
    "operational_effect": "The practical consequence is a **revocation latency floor equal to the longest downstream credential TTL**, not the revocation propagation time. Operators who measure revocation latency as \"time from revocation publish to enforcement point acknowledgment\" will report sub-second revocation while the actual authority window remains open for the full downstream..."
  },
  "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": "38d3b7e0a3ad12ecbc87597f3ffcbd3c60ea611fefa4b58101acfb9c11749355",
    "verified_classes": [
      "DelegationRevocationError",
      "Credential",
      "Revocation"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "enforce_revocation",
      "path_hash"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "DelegationRevocationError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "hashlib"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}