{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "where-must-an-instance-stop-trusting-a-federated-peer-the-delegation-depth-collapse-at-the-trust-bootstrap-boundary",
  "title": "Where must an instance stop trusting a federated peer: the delegation-depth collapse at the trust-bootstrap boundary",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 7",
  "scope": "This record applies to cross-org agent federation where task routing authority is delegated transitively across administrative domains via signed capability tokens (e.g., macaroon or biscuit-style attenuation). It does not apply to single-org multi-agent meshes sharing one trust root, nor to federations that use pairwise bilateral attestation with no transitive delegation.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-stop-trusting-a-federated-peer-the-delegation-depth-collapse-at-the-trust-bootstrap-boundary.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-stop-trusting-a-federated-peer-the-delegation-depth-collapse-at-the-trust-bootstrap-boundary.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/where-must-an-instance-stop-trusting-a-federated-peer-the-delegation-depth-collapse-at-the-trust-bootstrap-boundary.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1324,
    "python_slice_tokens": 217,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious invariant is this: **trust bootstrapping is not a graph reachability problem; it is a depth-bounded attenuation problem.** Operators routinely conflate \"can domain A reach domain D through B and C\" (a routing question, solvable by transitive closure over the federation graph) with \"is the credential that arrives at D still a valid delegation ...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a three-org federation rollout (call them Origin, Broker, and Edge), task routing used a capability token minted by Origin, attenuated by Broker to restrict scope to `task:route` and `org:edge`, and presented to Edge's task router. Edge's policy engine verified the signature chain end-to-end and admitted the request. The request then executed with Origin's *full* original caveat set, because Edge's verifier on...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The invariant holds — that a federated credential is safe to honor — only when **all** of the following are true at the verifying domain: 1. The verifier can evaluate *every* caveat in the presented chain, or the chain explicitly marks unevaluable caveats as fatal (fail-closed), not droppable. 2. The delegation depth is within the bound declared at bootstrap...",
    "decision_boundary": "The decision boundary is between **fail-closed on unknown predicates** and **forward-compatible predicate dropping**. These are not reconcilable defaults; they are opposite policies and must be chosen explicitly per federation, not inherited from a library default. - Choose fail-closed when the credential carries any authority the verifier cannot fully bound...",
    "operational_effect": "Enforcing the boundary changes the failure mode from *silent over-authorization* to *loud routing rejection*. The cost is availability: federated tasks that would have \"worked\" (by ignoring caveats) now fail at the verifier. The benefit is that the failure is attributable — the rejecting domain can report exactly which predicate namespace it could not evalua..."
  },
  "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": "7d446a82f00c19738b5f5a14c6f58d0609907c5d1ff2e8be702746d2b8798365",
    "verified_classes": [
      "FederationTrustBoundaryError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "verify_federated_token",
      "admit_federated_task"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 3,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "FederationTrustBoundaryError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}