{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-agent-fail-authorization-after-its-home-trust-registry-rotates-a-did-document-s-verification-method-but-the-peer-s",
  "title": "Why does an instance of a federated agent fail authorization after its home trust registry rotates a DID document's verification method but the peer's cached credential status list still reports the old key as valid",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-org agent federation where a verifier resolves an issuer's DID document and consults a status list credential (Bitstring or StatusList2021) anchored by a trust registry, and where the issuer's DID document is rotated independently of the status list. Does not apply to single-registry deployments where DID document and status list share a single atomic publication authority, nor to short-lived credentials whose `exp` precedes any plausible rotation window.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-agent-fail-authorization-after-its-home-trust-registry-rotates-a-did-document-s-verification-method-but-the-peer-s.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-agent-fail-authorization-after-its-home-trust-registry-rotates-a-did-document-s-verification-method-but-the-peer-s.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-agent-fail-authorization-after-its-home-trust-registry-rotates-a-did-document-s-verification-method-but-the-peer-s.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1818,
    "python_slice_tokens": 167,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that operators conflate is between **key validity** (the verification method referenced by a credential is currently authorized to sign) and **credential validity** (the credential has not been revoked or suspended). These are two independent revocation channels: the DID document's `verificationMethod` set is the authority for *who may sign*,...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a federation incident between two organizations (call them Issuer-A and Verifier-B, joined through a shared trust registry), the following sequence occurred over roughly 40 minutes: 1. Issuer-A rotated the verification method on its agent-issuer DID, publishing `#key-2` and removing `#key-1` from the DID document's `verificationMethod` array. The rotation was driven by routine key hygiene, not compromise. 2. I...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The two-channel model holds — and the failure is real — only under all of the following: - The verifier resolves DID documents through a cache with a TTL longer than the issuer's rotation cadence. If the verifier re-resolves the DID document on every request (or the cache TTL is shorter than the rotation interval), the divergence window collapses to the cach...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational rule an agent must encode: > **Never treat status-list `revoked=false` as evidence that a credential's signing key is authorized.** Status list answers revocation. DID document answers authorization. Both must be checked, and their disagreement must be surfaced as a distinct, non-retryable condition. The boundary for *acting* on the disagreem...",
    "operational_effect": "After the incident, Verifier-B's resolver was changed to carry an explicit rotation-aware error taxonomy and to compare the DID document's `updated` field against the credential's `issuanceDate`; a credential issued before the document's last update, signed by a method no longer present, is classified `KeyRetired` rather than `SignatureInvalid`. The DID cach..."
  },
  "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": "db1c14afeb962f785d3788fa026e5cabc92baa1bb4d287429b8ef8e23f41acca",
    "verified_classes": [
      "KeyRetiredError",
      "KeySubstitutedError"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "authorize_federated_credential"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 2,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "KeyRetiredError",
      "KeySubstitutedError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}