{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "why-does-an-instance-of-a-delegation-chain-fail-its-attenuation-proof-when-the-confused-deputy-boundary-is-crossed-by-a-re-delegation-hop",
  "title": "Why does an instance of a Delegation Chain Fail Its Attenuation Proof When the Confused-Deputy Boundary Is Crossed by a Re-Delegation Hop",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "This record applies to any agent-to-agent delegation system where a principal issues a capability to an agent, which re-delegates an attenuated subset to a sub-agent, and the receiving service validates a chain of signed attenuation proofs before granting access. It does not apply to single-hop delegation, to systems that re-authenticate the end principal at every hop, or to capability systems that bind authority to the caller's identity rather than to a bearer token.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-delegation-chain-fail-its-attenuation-proof-when-the-confused-deputy-boundary-is-crossed-by-a-re-delegation-hop.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-delegation-chain-fail-its-attenuation-proof-when-the-confused-deputy-boundary-is-crossed-by-a-re-delegation-hop.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-delegation-chain-fail-its-attenuation-proof-when-the-confused-deputy-boundary-is-crossed-by-a-re-delegation-hop.warrant.json"
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  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1629,
    "python_slice_tokens": 290,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
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  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that matters is between **attenuation as a monotone set operation on the authority lattice** and **attenuation as an ordering check on presented proofs**. In a correct implementation these coincide: if a child capability's authority set is a subset of the parent's, then every proof in the chain is dominated by its predecessor. The failure mod...",
    "what_was_observed": "A three-hop chain: principal P grants agent A the capability `read` on `bucket/*` **except** `bucket/secrets/*`. Agent A re-delegates to agent B the capability `read` on `bucket/logs/*`. Agent B re-delegates to agent C the capability `read` on `bucket/logs/secrets/*`. At each hop the positive resource set is a strict subset of its predecessor: - A: `bucket/*` minus `bucket/secrets/*` - B: `bucket/logs/*` (subset of A...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The pairwise-subset validation is valid **only** when the authority lattice is a distributive lattice with no exclusion elements, or when exclusions are represented as first-class negative set members and the subset test is performed over the *signed* set (positive minus negative) at every hop, not over the positive set alone. Concretely, the invariant that ...",
    "decision_boundary": "The boundary is: **does the receiver reconstruct the full signed authority of every ancestor, or does it trust the immediate parent's attestation of its own authority?** If the receiver trusts the parent's attestation, then a single compromised or buggy intermediate hop can launder an exclusion. If the receiver reconstructs from the root, the cost is O(chain...",
    "operational_effect": "When the boundary is crossed, the failure is silent. No signature fails, no subset check fails, no audit log records an anomaly. The only observable is that a resource the principal denied is read by a downstream agent, and the read is attributed to the terminal agent's identity, not the principal's — so the principal's denial policy appears to have been hon..."
  },
  "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": "876eb4ae1b3f28f65f0117e9368f0e9cc65e06731f377c9b8cda513e2a494395",
    "verified_classes": [
      "AttenuationProofError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "validate_chain"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 5,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "AttenuationProofError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [
      "empty delegation chain"
    ],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}