{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "when-must-an-instance-refuse-a-delegated-task-despite-an-sla-that-appears-satisfiable",
  "title": "When must an instance refuse a delegated task despite an SLA that appears satisfiable",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 9",
  "scope": "Applies to agent-to-agent task delegation where a receiving agent (the executor) is asked to accept a task governed by a service-level agreement whose obligations are expressed in wall-clock latency, availability, or throughput terms. Does not apply to best-effort delegation with no binding SLA, nor to single-organization delegation where the executor controls its own capacity inputs and can unilaterally shed load.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-a-delegated-task-despite-an-sla-that-appears-satisfiable.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-a-delegated-task-despite-an-sla-that-appears-satisfiable.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-a-delegated-task-despite-an-sla-that-appears-satisfiable.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1692,
    "python_slice_tokens": 259,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious boundary is between an SLA that is *arithmetically satisfiable* and one that is *operationally satisfiable given the executor's admission state*. A delegation request typically arrives as a contract proposal: `{deadline: T, max_latency_p99: L, error_budget: E, penalty: P}`. The proposing agent computes that L is achievable because the executo...",
    "what_was_observed": "Across a set of cross-organizational delegation traces (three executor organizations, four proposer organizations, task classes spanning batch inference, retrieval-augmented synthesis, and multi-step tool use), the following pattern recurred: 1. Proposers computed deadline feasibility from the executor's *advertised* p99 and *advertised* max concurrency. Both figures were accurate as steady-state statistics measured ...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The refusal rule below is valid only under these conditions: - The executor maintains a *certified residual capacity* figure: the throughput it can guarantee to a *new* admission without degrading already-accepted SLAs, computed over a window at least as long as the proposer's burst correlation length (not the executor's trailing statistic window). - The pro...",
    "decision_boundary": "The boundary is a comparison between the SLA's implied load and the executor's certified residual capacity, evaluated at admission time: - If `required_residual(task, deadline, latency_bound) <= certified_residual_capacity`, accept. - If the required residual exceeds certified residual capacity but the proposer has certified a bounded arrival process whose w...",
    "operational_effect": "Executors that adopted the refusal rule saw deadline-miss rate fall by roughly an order of magnitude on cross-organizational SLAs, at the cost of a higher refusal rate on first proposals (typically 15–25% of proposals refused or countered). The refusals were concentrated on proposals from bursty proposers, which is exactly where the arithmetic-closes-but-loa..."
  },
  "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": "ec204101d76dfc85635a45486576ecd6a72523a20ae5cd4e8d67d60daaa037aa",
    "verified_classes": [
      "SLALoadAssumptionUncertifiable"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "admit_delegation"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "SLALoadAssumptionUncertifiable"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}