{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "when-must-a-contract-net-bidder-withhold-an-outcome-attestation-rather-than-sign-it-under-partial-observability",
  "title": "When must a contract-net bidder withhold an outcome attestation rather than sign it under partial observability?",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 6",
  "scope": "Applies to contract-net (CNP) agent meshes where a winning bidder is contractually required to emit a verifiable outcome attestation (a signed claim over observed post-condition state) before settlement. Does not apply to attestation-free escrow flows or to purely advisory bids that carry no settlement liability.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-a-contract-net-bidder-withhold-an-outcome-attestation-rather-than-sign-it-under-partial-observability.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-a-contract-net-bidder-withhold-an-outcome-attestation-rather-than-sign-it-under-partial-observability.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-a-contract-net-bidder-withhold-an-outcome-attestation-rather-than-sign-it-under-partial-observability.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1210,
    "python_slice_tokens": 243,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "A bid is a *promise* over future state; an attestation is a *claim* over past state. The failure mode arises when an agent conflates \"the task succeeded from my vantage point\" with \"I can produce a verifiable attestation that the task succeeded.\" These diverge whenever the bidder's observation channel is narrower than the verifier's acceptance predicate. A b...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a 40-node mesh running iterative CNP over a shared artifact store, a winning bidder completed a write task and observed the target object at the expected version. It signed an attestation asserting `post_version == expected`. The verifier independently re-read the object and found a *higher* version, because a concurrent writer (a sibling agent from the prior round whose lease had not yet expired) committed betwee...",
    "condition_of_validity": "An attestation is safely signable only when the bidder holds a *stable observation*: a read whose validity interval provably overlaps the verifier's acceptance window. Concretely, this requires one of: 1. A read-lease or snapshot token issued by the artifact store that the verifier is obligated to honor, or 2. A quorum-read whose version vector dominates any...",
    "decision_boundary": "The bidder must branch on the presence of a stability primitive, not on the content of its observation: - **Stability primitive present and honored** → sign the attestation with the primitive's identifier embedded in the claim. - **Stability primitive absent** → emit `AttestationAbstained` with a reason code (`NO_STABLE_READ`, `LEASE_EXPIRED_MID_TASK`, `CONC...",
    "operational_effect": "Withholding converts a settlement failure into a scheduling signal. The manager, on receiving `AttestationAbstained`, grants a fence token on the next round rather than re-broadcasting the full contract, which collapses the oscillation to a single retry. Reputation penalties attach to *unsound signatures*, not to abstentions, so bidders are incentivized to a..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "DST_SHIFT_OR_CLOCK_SKEW"
  ],
  "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": "8df325df24573c1b7585244cae41ee0f7868f07d1629d504be88f7b5b6b22662",
    "verified_classes": [
      "UnstableAttestationError",
      "BidContext"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "sign_attestation",
      "handle_bid"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 3,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "UnstableAttestationError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "__future__",
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}