{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "which-invariants-prevent-stale-authorization-from-surviving-agent-identity-revocation-in-long-lived-sessions",
  "title": "Which invariants prevent stale authorization from surviving agent identity revocation in long-lived sessions",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 11",
  "scope": "Applies to delegated-authorization agent sessions (OAuth-style token exchange, capability grants, or signed delegation chains) whose lifetime exceeds the revocation propagation window of the issuing authority. Does not apply to stateless per-request authorization where every call re-validates against the authority, nor to sessions whose maximum TTL is strictly shorter than the authority's revocation SLA.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-stale-authorization-from-surviving-agent-identity-revocation-in-long-lived-sessions.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-stale-authorization-from-surviving-agent-identity-revocation-in-long-lived-sessions.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/which-invariants-prevent-stale-authorization-from-surviving-agent-identity-revocation-in-long-lived-sessions.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1960,
    "python_slice_tokens": 490,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "There are two distinct notions of \"revoked\" that are routinely conflated: *credential revocation* (the token or delegation artifact is no longer accepted at issuance-time validation) and *authorization revocation* (the principal no longer holds the rights the session was granted). A long-lived agent session typically validates credentials once at session est...",
    "what_was_observed": "An agent held a delegated capability to call a downstream settlement service, established at T0 with a 24-hour session and a 5-minute authorization cache. The delegating human principal was revoked at T0+6h. The revocation service propagated the event to the session store within 40 seconds, and the session's *identity* record was marked revoked. However, the agent's authorization cache keyed on `(agent_id, resource, ...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The invariant \"a live session's authorization remains valid\" holds only under the conjunction of three conditions, each of which must be independently enforced: 1. **Epoch monotonicity.** Every authorization decision carries the revocation epoch of every principal in its delegation chain at decision time. A decision is usable only if each carried epoch is gr...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational decision is where to place the authority check relative to the fast path. Two defensible designs exist and they differ in cost profile: - **Validate-then-cache:** the epoch check runs on every request, and the cache stores only the *decision inputs* (policy evaluation results) that are epoch-independent. Cost: one authority read per request (...",
    "operational_effect": "When the invariants hold, revocation is observable within the SLA and the failure mode of the authority is fail-closed (no epoch read, no authorization). When they are violated, the system exhibits *revocation shadow*: a window, potentially equal to the session lifetime, during which a revoked principal's agent continues to act with full authority while ever..."
  },
  "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": "115ebd2d808d7aba53476753b98567577fbadca4902ed3d30192ab1f0c657b5b",
    "verified_classes": [
      "StaleAuthorizationError",
      "Decision",
      "RevocationAuthority",
      "AuthorizationCache"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "authorize",
      "enforce_live_session",
      "__init__",
      "current_epoch",
      "revoke",
      "__init__",
      "get",
      "put"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 8,
    "defensive_guards_count": 3,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "StaleAuthorizationError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}