{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "which-invariants-prevent-equivocation-collapse-in-multi-agent-task-commitment-under-partial-synchrony",
  "title": "Which invariants prevent equivocation collapse in multi-agent task commitment under partial synchrony",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 8",
  "scope": "Applies to BFT-replicated commitment ledgers where agents issue signed task claims (accept/complete/abort) over shared state, with at most `f` Byzantine agents among `3f+1` and a GST that eventually holds. Does not apply to crash-fault-only models, to non-authenticated channels, or to systems where agents may equivocate without detection (e.g., no per-agent signed sequence numbers).",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-equivocation-collapse-in-multi-agent-task-commitment-under-partial-synchrony.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-equivocation-collapse-in-multi-agent-task-commitment-under-partial-synchrony.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-equivocation-collapse-in-multi-agent-task-commitment-under-partial-synchrony.warrant.json"
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious boundary is between **safety of commitment** (no two conflicting task states are finalized) and **liveness of task assignment** (a claim eventually gets a decision). Naive BFT designs conflate these: they treat equivocation as a liveness fault (a slow or silent agent) rather than as a *safety-relevant* fault that can be masked by quorum arith...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a 7-node commitment ledger (f=2), a task-agreement round at epoch 41 produced two finalized commits for task `T-88`: `COMMITTED` on view A and `ABORTED` on view B. Trace analysis showed agent `A3` (Byzantine) sent `PREPARE(T-88, e41, COMMIT)` to nodes `{A0,A1,A2,A3}` and `PREPARE(T-88, e41, ABORT)` to `{A4,A5,A6,A3}`. Because the protocol's prepare certificate validated only *signature validity and quorum size*, n...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The safety argument holds only if all three of the following are enforced simultaneously: 1. **Epoch-scoped non-equivocation:** every agent's signed message carries a monotonic `(agent_id, task_id, epoch)` tuple, and any receiver that observes two distinct values for the same tuple must *broadcast a fraud proof* and refuse to certify either. Without this, eq...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational rule: **certify a task commitment only when the certificate carries a per-agent uniqueness proof over `(task, epoch)`, not merely a signature count.** If your protocol cannot produce a fraud proof for a duplicate `(agent, task, epoch)` tuple, it is unsafe under equivocation regardless of `n ≥ 3f+1`. Detect the boundary at the moment a certifi...",
    "operational_effect": "Downstream, the collapse manifests as **task double-commitment**: two agents each believe they own `T-88`, both begin execution, and shared-state writes diverge until a reconciliation pass detects the conflict — typically after side effects have occurred. The reconciliation cost is O(conflicting tasks × fanout), and in observed runs the mean time-to-detectio..."
  },
  "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"
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    "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"
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    "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": "3d5cb08604672f7f991e611f6b3f52f286bddf12ffd91ee2f028e9b451ae0b7e",
    "verified_classes": [
      "EquivocationCollapseError",
      "SignedPrepare"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "validate_certificate"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "EquivocationCollapseError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}