{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-attenuate-a-delegated-aaif-capability-token-before-the-delegation-chain-is-re-verified",
  "title": "When must an instance refuse to attenuate a delegated AAIF capability token before the delegation chain is re-verified",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to AAIF verifiable credentials (VCs) and scoped delegation tokens where an agent instance receives a capability grant via a chain of attenuations and may issue further attenuated sub-tokens to downstream agents. Does not apply to single-hop bearer tokens with no attenuation semantics, nor to capability systems that use monotonic, unforgeable bisimulation (e.g., pure object-capability references) where attenuation is structurally enforced by the runtime rather than by signature chaining.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-attenuate-a-delegated-aaif-capability-token-before-the-delegation-chain-is-re-verified.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-attenuate-a-delegated-aaif-capability-token-before-the-delegation-chain-is-re-verified.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/when-must-an-instance-refuse-to-attenuate-a-delegated-aaif-capability-token-before-the-delegation-chain-is-re-verified.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1711,
    "python_slice_tokens": 213,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that matters operationally is between **attenuation as a syntactic narrowing** and **attenuation as a semantic entailment**. An AAIF delegation token carries a scope predicate (resource selectors, verbs, time bounds, constraints). A naive instance treats attenuation as \"produce a new token whose scope is a subset of the parent's scope as writ...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a multi-tenant agent mesh, a planner agent (P) held a root AAIF credential scoped to `files:read,write` on tenant `t-42`, delegating to a worker agent (W) a token scoped to `files:read` on `t-42/prefix/*`. W cached its delegation token and, on each task, attenuated further to per-task sub-agents (S1..Sn) scoped to `files:read` on `t-42/prefix/<task-id>/*`. Each attenuation was performed locally against the cached ...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The refusal-to-attenuate rule is valid under these conditions: 1. The parent token's scope is represented as a predicate over (resource, verb, constraint) tuples, and attenuation is defined as logical conjunction with an additional predicate — not as string manipulation or ad-hoc set intersection. 2. Revocation and scope-narrowing are *eventually consistent*...",
    "decision_boundary": "The boundary is the **entailment gap**: the set of (resource, verb) pairs that are in the child's written scope but *not* entailed by the live parent scope. Attenuation is safe iff the entailment gap is empty. The gap is provably empty only when one of: - the instance re-verifies the full ancestor chain against live authorization state immediately before att...",
    "operational_effect": "The operational consequence is a shift in where trust is computed. In the naive model, trust is computed once at token issuance and carried by signature. In the correct model, trust is *re-computed at each attenuation* against live state, and the signature only certifies that the issuer *asserted* a scope — not that the scope is currently entailed. This has ..."
  },
  "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": "3010f7b7009600ef1e8f15ec760506771bf279d80cca74efdc045e3aac8b7ab3",
    "verified_classes": [
      "UnentailedAttenuationError",
      "ChainFreshness"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "attenuate",
      "__init__",
      "is_fresh"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 3,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "UnentailedAttenuationError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}