{
  "schema_version": "1.3.0",
  "slug": "why-does-an-instance-of-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens-fail-silently-when-a-swarm-peer-re-issues-a-delegated-token-across-a-trust-domain-boundary",
  "title": "Why does an instance of AAIF-scoped capability tokens fail silently when a swarm peer re-issues a delegated token across a trust-domain boundary?",
  "date_of_record": "2026 November 14",
  "scope": "Applies to AAIF (Agent-to-Agent Invocation Framework) capability tokens that are attenuated and re-delegated across swarm peers spanning distinct trust domains, where token verification is stateless at the resource. Does not apply to single-domain swarms sharing one issuer root, nor to tokens that are never re-delegated (leaf-only capabilities).",
  "projections": {
    "unified_markdown_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens-fail-silently-when-a-swarm-peer-re-issues-a-delegated-token-across-a-trust-domain-boundary.md",
    "method_python_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens-fail-silently-when-a-swarm-peer-re-issues-a-delegated-token-across-a-trust-domain-boundary.py",
    "remnant_warrant_slice_uri": "https://corpusfetch.com/c/why-does-an-instance-of-aaif-scoped-capability-tokens-fail-silently-when-a-swarm-peer-re-issues-a-delegated-token-across-a-trust-domain-boundary.warrant.json"
  },
  "token_profile": {
    "full_markdown_tokens": 2089,
    "python_slice_tokens": 483,
    "warrant_slice_tokens": 220
  },
  "remnant_summary": {
    "core_distinction": "A capability token carries two logically independent facts: **what it authorizes** (the scope/attenuation chain) and **who vouches for it** (the issuer chain). The common mental model conflates these — that attenuation *narrows* authority and therefore cannot *escalate* it. That is true within a single trust domain. It is false across a trust-domain boundary...",
    "what_was_observed": "In a federated swarm with three domains — `origin` (issues root capability `tool:db.read` scoped to table `orders`), `broker` (a peer that fans out work), and `resource` (the DB gateway) — the following sequence was reproduced: 1. `origin` mints `cap{scope: db.read@orders, iss: origin, sub: agent-A}`. 2. `agent-A` attenuates to `cap{scope: db.read@orders, iss: origin, sub: agent-B, atten: [orders]}` and hands to `bro...",
    "condition_of_validity": "The silent-escalation failure requires all of the following to co-occur; removing any one prevents it: - **Re-issuance rather than forwarding.** The intermediary mints a new token with its own `iss` instead of passing the original token through with an added signature. Forwarding preserves the origin root and keeps revocation correlated. - **Stateless resour...",
    "decision_boundary": "The operational decision is whether to treat a peer as a **forwarder** or a **re-issuer**, and to encode that choice in the token's structure rather than in prose policy. - Choose **forwarding** (append-signature, preserve `iss` root) when revocation correlation and audit provenance matter more than per-peer policy enforcement. Cost: the origin's key must be...",
    "operational_effect": "Left unaddressed, the failure converts least-privilege from a property of the *capability graph* into a property of *each verifier's local trust set* — which is exactly the property least-privilege was meant to avoid depending on. Revocation latency becomes unbounded (bounded only by token TTL), audit trails fragment across issuer domains, and a compromised ..."
  },
  "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": "3ae01d23b0c454597dddb41bed92c615c9493a0825fc3cd0c97a1d4bbf334e01",
    "verified_classes": [
      "CapabilityChainError",
      "CapabilityToken"
    ],
    "verified_functions": [
      "reissue",
      "verify_at_resource",
      "_is_subset_scope",
      "_known_parent_digests",
      "reproduce_silent_escalation",
      "digest"
    ],
    "verified_functions_count": 6,
    "defensive_guards_count": 4,
    "raised_exceptions": [
      "CapabilityChainError"
    ],
    "sample_fail_closed_invariants": [
      "assert verify_at_resource(broker_token, {'broker'}, revoked) is False",
      "re-issued token has no parent binding"
    ],
    "stdlib_dependencies": [
      "dataclasses",
      "hashlib",
      "typing"
    ],
    "observation_mode": "EMPIRICAL_BOUNDARY_CAPTURE",
    "zero_external_deps": true
  }
}