Debug an authority chain

A denial can be explained by walking the relevant grant edges and current constraints.

01 / The operating case

What changes in a real workflow?

A child agent is denied a refund despite holding a valid service token.

Trace the authority boundary
  1. 01Authority origin
  2. 02Task and grant
  3. 03Current decision
  4. 04Observed outcome

02 / Decision contract

What the executor must check

Resolve originating owner, parent and child grants, each scope intersection, revocation, budget, resource policy and current task; report the first failed constraint.

InputPrincipal · task · action · target
DecisionGrant ancestry · policy · current state
ResultEnforce · record · verify outcome

03 / Failure and evidence

What goes wrong, and what can be proven?

Failure mode

Debugging stops at “token valid” and misses a revoked ancestor.

Evidence to retain

Keep sanitized chain trace with edge IDs, policy version, failed predicate and protected executor outcome.

04 / Canonical scope

Why this reference stands alone

Delegation validation defines algorithm; this guide owns operator diagnosis.

Illustrative implementation artifact

Denial trace order

identity -> origin grant -> parent edges -> child scope
 -> task active -> resource policy -> budget -> approval
 -> current context -> final verdict
report first failing constraint with safe reason code

Primary references

Read the underlying material

Architecture discussion

Choose one consequential action and make its boundary explicit.

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