{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "which-invariants-prevent-revocation-from-being-a-linearizable-operation-across-federated-agent-identity-graphs",
  "title": "Which invariants prevent revocation from being a linearizable operation across federated agent identity graphs",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-org agent identity federation where agents present verifiable credentials (VCs) signed by a home-org issuer and relying-party orgs (RPs) admit them based on trust chains and revocation status. Does not apply to single-org deployments where issuer and verifier share a single revocation database, nor to purely capability-token systems with short TTLs and no persistent credential state.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-revocation-from-being-a-linearizable-operation-across-federated-agent-identity-graphs.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-revocation-from-being-a-linearizable-operation-across-federated-agent-identity-graphs.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-revocation-from-being-a-linearizable-operation-across-federated-agent-identity-graphs.warrant.json"
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The non-obvious boundary is between *revocation visibility* and *revocation authority*. Most federation designs assume that once a revocation event is published to a status list (e.g., Bitstring Status List, OCSP-style responder, or a signed revocation registry), any RP that can read the list has \"revoked\" the credential. This conflates two invariants: 1. **...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a three-org federation (issuer A, RP B, RP C) using signed status lists with 5-minute cache TTLs, we observed the following during a network partition between A and B: - Agent *a₁* was revoked at A at T+0 due to a compromised signing key. - RP C, still connected to A, refreshed its status list at T+90s and began rejecting *a₁*. - RP B, partitioned from A, continued to serve cached status list (last successful fetc...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The invariant \"an RP admits a credential only if it is not revoked\" holds only under the conjunction: - (i) the RP's status fetch is causally after the issuer's latest revocation event for that credential, **or** the credential's validity interval has a bounded, issuer-attested freshness proof (e.g., short-lived VCs with `nbf`/`exp` and issuer-signed `revoca...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational decision: **do not treat status-list freshness as a revocation guarantee; treat it as a revocation hint, and gate admission on a freshness proof with a hard upper bound.** Concretely, for each credential class, choose one: - **Short-lived VCs** (`exp − nbf ≤ Δ`, Δ small, e.g. 10 min): rely on expiry; status list is advisory. Requires issuer t...",
    "operational_effect": "Under the chosen discipline, the observable effects are: - Partition between issuer and RP causes **fail-closed admission** for long-lived credentials after `max_epoch_lag`, not silent stale admission. This surfaces the partition as an availability incident rather than a security incident — the correct trade for identity. - Delegated agents incur chain-statu..."
  },
  "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": "ca1bfb0d2bc016c0c25560d59d32eb62b68bf0840a6fee9e3eec06f52f35ad12",
    "verified_classes": [
      "RevocationGapError",
      "StatusSnapshot",
      "AdmissionRequest"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "admit",
      "reconcile_gap_window"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 2,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "RevocationGapError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "time"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}