{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-capability-grant-silently-outlive-the-policy-epoch-that-authorized-it",
  "title": "Why does an instance of a federated capability grant silently outlive the policy epoch that authorized it",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 10",
  "scope": "Applies to cross-org multi-agent federations where capability grants are minted under a policy epoch (a versioned, signed bundle of jurisdictional residency rules and capability-sharing terms) and are consumed by remote agents across organizational boundaries. Does not apply to single-org deployments, to grants whose lifetime is bounded strictly by the issuing process's own lifetime, or to stateless request/response mediation where no capability token is cached or delegated.",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-capability-grant-silently-outlive-the-policy-epoch-that-authorized-it.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-capability-grant-silently-outlive-the-policy-epoch-that-authorized-it.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-a-federated-capability-grant-silently-outlive-the-policy-epoch-that-authorized-it.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 1332,
    "python_slice_tokens": 243,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "The distinction that matters is between **capability validity** and **policy authorization**. A capability token can be cryptographically valid — correct signature, unexpired `nbf`/`exp`, correct issuer chain — while the policy epoch under which it was minted has been superseded, revoked, or narrowed by a jurisdiction change. Most federation implementations ...",
    "what_was_observed": "During a federation between three orgs (call them A, B, C) sharing a document-retrieval capability, org A's jurisdiction reclassified a document class `FIN-PII` from transferable to pinned-to-region. A's policy service rolled epoch `e41 → e42` and published a revocation list. However: - Org B's agent held a delegated capability token minted under `e41` with a 6-hour TTL, delegated onward to C's agent (a chain of dept...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The invariant that must hold for safe federation is: > For every capability token `t` consumed against resource `r` owned by org `O`, `t.policy_epoch` must equal `O.current_epoch` at the moment of consumption, **or** `t` must carry an explicit epoch-continuity proof signed by `O` attesting that `t.policy_epoch` remains authorized under `O.current_epoch` for ...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational decision is whether to enforce **epoch-pinned admission** (reject any token whose epoch ≠ current epoch at the owner, forcing re-mint) or **epoch-continuity admission** (accept superseded epochs only with an explicit continuity proof). The boundary: - If the data class is jurisdiction-pinned and the epoch delta includes a residency narrowing ...",
    "operational_effect": "Enforcing epoch-pinned admission for pinned data classes eliminates the violation window entirely at the cost of re-mint latency on every epoch roll (measured ~40–90ms per re-mint in the observed federation, amortizable via owner-side epoch-continuity tokens for additive deltas). The delegation chain must carry an `epoch_authority` endpoint reference so any ..."
  },
  "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": "f28bf2ee2ea32f6fd986448341e2f4b89f6b8115727e6a7c8ad79121d32f4d2c",
    "verified_classes": [
      "EpochAdmissionError",
      "CapabilityToken",
      "OwnerEpochState"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "admit_capability"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 1,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "EpochAdmissionError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "time",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}