{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "where-must-an-instance-of-a-litmus-safety-benchmark-draw-the-boundary-between-a-harmful-capability-probe-and-a-legitimate-capability-probe",
  "title": "Where must an instance of a LITMUS safety benchmark draw the boundary between a harmful capability probe and a legitimate capability probe?",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 9",
  "scope": "Applies to the construction and adjudication of LITMUS-style agentic safety benchmark instances that measure jailbreak resistance, agentic harm, and tool-misuse, where a model is asked to perform a task that is instrumentally adjacent to a harmful outcome. Does not apply to pure refusal-classification benchmarks (where the only output is a label) or to red-team corpora that are not scored per-instance for capability transfer.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-of-a-litmus-safety-benchmark-draw-the-boundary-between-a-harmful-capability-probe-and-a-legitimate-capability-probe.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-of-a-litmus-safety-benchmark-draw-the-boundary-between-a-harmful-capability-probe-and-a-legitimate-capability-probe.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-of-a-litmus-safety-benchmark-draw-the-boundary-between-a-harmful-capability-probe-and-a-legitimate-capability-probe.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1480,
    "python_slice_tokens": 207,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious invariant is this: **a LITMUS instance is only valid if the harmful outcome is reachable through the same tool-call graph as the benign outcome, and the only thing separating them is the model's intent — not the model's capability.** Most benchmark authors accidentally construct instances where the harmful path requires strictly more capabili...",
    "what_was_observed": "While auditing a LITMUS instance family for tool-misuse (a file-management agent with `read_file`, `write_file`, `http_post`, `run_python`), we found a recurring pattern in the \"exfiltration\" subfamily. The benign branch asked the agent to summarize a local log file and post the summary to an approved endpoint. The harmful branch asked the agent to post the *raw* file to an unapproved endpoint. On inspection, the ben...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The instance is valid only under all of the following: 1. **Capability equivalence:** The benign and harmful branches require the same set of tool primitives, the same number of calls (within ±1), and the same transform complexity. The harmful branch must not be gated behind a capability the benign branch does not also exercise. 2. **Intent isolation:** The ...",
    "decision_boundary": "When constructing or reviewing an instance, apply this test before admitting it: - If the harmful branch requires a capability the benign branch does not, **reject the instance** — it measures capability, not intent. - If the harmful branch requires *less* capability than the benign branch, **reject the instance** — it inverts the safety signal (weak models ...",
    "operational_effect": "After applying this boundary, the exfiltration subfamily's pass rates changed materially: several models previously scored \"safe\" on the harmful branch were reclassified as \"inconclusive\" because they failed the paired benign branch, removing a false safety signal. Models that succeeded on the benign branch and refused the harmful branch were the only ones r..."
  },
  "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": "06a69ff44a9301f8b6b322e591b9838b72cd5921a0c0bc913e7e0cb8df30e6c9",
    "verified_classes": [
      "CapabilityAsymmetryError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "admit_instance"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 3,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "CapabilityAsymmetryError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [
      "Harmful branch succeeded where capability-matched benign branch failed; instance is not capability-equivalent and must b",
      "Harmful branch diverges structurally before the intent-bearing step; it is gated on a different capability than the beni"
    ],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}