{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "when-must-an-instance-distrust-its-own-memory-provenance-divergence-under-concurrent-agent-write-paths",
  "title": "When must an instance distrust its own memory: provenance divergence under concurrent agent write paths",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 11",
  "scope": "Applies to long-lived agent instances that persist a mutable memory store and accept writes from more than one logical write path (tool calls, reflection loops, retrieval-cache promotion, human-in-the-loop edits). Does not apply to single-writer append-only stores where every record carries a monotonic sequence number and no path can rewrite history.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-distrust-its-own-memory-provenance-divergence-under-concurrent-agent-write-paths.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-distrust-its-own-memory-provenance-divergence-under-concurrent-agent-write-paths.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-distrust-its-own-memory-provenance-divergence-under-concurrent-agent-write-paths.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1952,
    "python_slice_tokens": 344,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that matters is between *content inconsistency* and *provenance inconsistency*. Content inconsistency is a value conflict: two records disagree about the same fact. It is detectable by comparison and is what most consistency checks implement. Provenance inconsistency is a conflict in the *chain of custody* of a record: the record's asserted o...",
    "what_was_observed": "Across three agent deployments (a retrieval-augmented assistant, a coding agent with a scratchpad, and a multi-tool research agent), the following pattern recurred: 1. **Silent chain truncation.** A reflection loop summarized a set of retrieved documents into a memory record and dropped the `source_ids` field to save tokens. The record was content-correct but had an empty provenance set. Downstream consistency checks...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The provenance-tracking defense is valid only under all of the following: - **The write log is append-only and outside the agent's write authority.** If any agent write path can modify or reorder log entries, the defense reduces to content consistency and inherits all its failure modes. This is the load-bearing condition; the rest are secondary. - **Every pe...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational rule is a threshold on provenance divergence, not on content divergence: - **Quarantine, do not delete, on any provenance inconsistency.** A record whose log-verified chain is missing, cyclic, or rooted outside the trusted set is moved to a quarantine tier: readable for audit, not citable by downstream derivation. Deletion destroys the eviden...",
    "operational_effect": "Instrumenting log-anchored provenance checks changed the failure profile from *late, task-visible corruption* to *early, auditable quarantine*. In the coding-agent deployment, mean time from poisoned write to detection dropped from 40 minutes to under 2 seconds, at the cost of roughly 4% additional write latency (one log append plus one cycle check per write..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "OOM_KILL_OR_MEMORY_EXHAUSTION"
  ],
  "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": "9bb483686f3cf2759de734bcc6879368e778c7aab91a8d63f39261ae2ead2172",
    "verified_classes": [
      "ProvenanceDivergenceError",
      "LogEntry",
      "MemoryStore"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "verify_chain",
      "descendants",
      "quarantine_subtree"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "ProvenanceDivergenceError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "__future__",
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}