{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-apply-a-cross-org-slashing-verdict-the-quorum-intersection-invariant-under-colluding-reputation-federations",
  "title": "When must an instance refuse to apply a cross-org slashing verdict: the quorum-intersection invariant under colluding reputation federations",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 12",
  "scope": "Applies to federated agent-reputation systems where slashing verdicts are propagated between organizations and locally enforced against agent instances. Does not apply to single-org reputation ledgers, nor to purely advisory (non-enforcing) trust scores.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-apply-a-cross-org-slashing-verdict-the-quorum-intersection-invariant-under-colluding-reputation-federations.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-apply-a-cross-org-slashing-verdict-the-quorum-intersection-invariant-under-colluding-reputation-federations.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-apply-a-cross-org-slashing-verdict-the-quorum-intersection-invariant-under-colluding-reputation-federations.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1308,
    "python_slice_tokens": 243,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that matters is between *verdict validity* and *verdict enforceability*. A slashing verdict can be perfectly valid — cryptographically signed, correctly attributed, produced by an honest quorum of the issuing federation — and still be unenforceable by your instance, because enforcement requires that your local trust root be **quorum-intersect...",
    "what_was_observed": "Across three federated deployments (agent marketplaces, cross-org tool-calling meshes), the failure recurred identically. Federation A issues a slashing verdict against agent `X`, which is registered and running under Federation B. The verdict carries a quorum certificate over A's validator set `V_A` with threshold `t_A`. Federation B's enforcement policy checks: signature valid → apply slash. The check passes. The s...",
    "condition_of_validity": "A cross-org verdict is enforceable by instance B if and only if all hold: 1. The issuing quorum `Q_A` (the actual signer set, not the declared validator set) has non-empty intersection with B's local trust root `T_B`. 2. The intersection's weight, measured under `T_B`'s own weighting — not A's — meets B's enforcement threshold `t_B`. 3. The federation identi...",
    "decision_boundary": "The instance must refuse enforcement — and must refuse *loudly*, escalating to human review rather than silently dropping — when any of the four conditions fails. The boundary is sharp: there is no partial enforcement. A verdict that fails condition 2 is not \"weakly enforceable\"; it is unenforceable, and applying it is a trust-root violation regardless of ho...",
    "operational_effect": "Enforcing this boundary converts a silent remote-slash primitive into a detectable, auditable event. In the deployments above, adding weight-checked intersection reduced successful collusive slashing to zero in red-team exercises, at the cost of a small false-negative rate: legitimate verdicts from federations with thin-but-honest overlap with B are deferred..."
  },
  "matched_failure_symptoms": [
    "SPLIT_BRAIN_OR_ZOMBIE_WORKER"
  ],
  "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": "db896c2b934c1d9bf7f6a159f372b8373c39ed20bf0f55799eff5febfc3c8cea",
    "verified_classes": [
      "UnenforceableVerdictError",
      "Verdict",
      "TrustRoot"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "enforce_verdict"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "UnenforceableVerdictError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [
      "empty local trust root; no weight to evaluate against"
    ],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}