Internet-Draft Agent Control Delivery Evidence September 2026
Abak Expires 8 March 2027 [Page]
Workgroup:
Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet-Draft:
draft-abak-agent-control-delivery-evidence-01
Published:
Intended Status:
Informational
Expires:
Author:
A. T. Abak
Independent Researcher

Evidence Requirements for Agent Control Delivery and Outcome Reconciliation

Abstract

Agent systems can issue stop, suspend, revoke, constrain, cancel, or override instructions across system and administrative boundaries. A record that such a control was decided or dispatched does not establish that every intended enforcement point received or applied it. Conversely, the absence of an acknowledgement does not, by itself, establish non-delivery.

This document defines format-independent evidence requirements for preserving those distinctions. It separates issuer-side emission, required-target resolution, receiver-side observation, enforcement outcome, and observation of the resulting control effect. For a control that must reach more than one enforcement target, the unit of delivery reconciliation is an instruction-target obligation rather than the parent instruction alone. The document also defines bounded negative observations, total reconciliation, population conservation, semantic-preservation requirements for intermediary paths, and a separate qualification for the evidentiary strength of aggregate claims.

This document does not define a receipt format, wire protocol, authorization system, policy language, transparency service, or audit regime.

Status of This Memo

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

This Internet-Draft will expire on 8 March 2027.

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