AI Agent Revoked Authority Verification

Report #006 added integrity to the evidence chain. #007 adds time to authority itself: not only “is this signature valid?” but “is this signer still allowed to authorize this transition now?”

signed evidence→verify signature→verify key lifecycle→decide

Ignoring revocation reproduced a duplicate.

The synthetic operation committed once and lost its response. A later record reported ABSENT and carried a mathematically valid signature from primary-v1. That key, however, had been revoked before the benchmark decision time.

01Commit

The intended side effect exists.

02Old evidence

Fresh signed ABSENT from primary-v1.

03Revocation ignored

Signature validity is treated as sufficient.

04Retry

A second commit is produced.

Authenticity answers who signed. Lifecycle answers whether that signer still has authority now.

Comparative result

×2

Unsafe valid-but-revoked keyOld signature accepted without lifecycle check.

×1

Revoked key rejectedSignature valid, evidence fresh, authority valid — but key inactive at decision time.

×1

Future key rejectedSignature valid, but the scheduled key was not active yet.

×1

Current rotated key acceptedActive primary-v2 reported trusted COMMITTED.

The decisive case

signature_valid=true+evidence_fresh=true+authority_valid=true

key_active_at_issue=truebutkey_active_at_decision=false

The old key was valid when the evidence was issued. It was revoked 60 seconds before the decision. The safe protocol returned trusted=false and blocked retry.

Future authority is not current authority.

A planned primary-v3 key also produced a valid local signature, but its activation time was still in the future. The safe path rejected it for the current transition.

Rotation succeeds when the new key is active.

The current primary-v2 key was active at decision time and had not been revoked. Its fresh trusted evidence reported COMMITTED, so the trajectory closed without retry.

Authority-lifecycle score · 10/10

Unsafe hazard reproduced · 2/2Valid revoked signature produced two effects when lifecycle was ignored.

Revocation enforcement · 2/2Old key was valid at issue, invalid at decision.

Activation enforcement · 2/2Future key could not authorize a current action.

Rotation acceptance · 2/2Current active rotated key closed COMMITTED safely.

Pinned evidence · 2/2Exact upstream SHA, deterministic FakeModel, synthetic effects only.

The temporal trust invariant

VALID SIGNATURE≠CURRENTLY TRUSTED AUTHORITY

For this benchmark's strict current-state policy, a key is accepted only when:

activated_at≤decision_time<revoked_at

when a revocation timestamp exists.

Evidence now has a lifecycle dimension.

VALUE what the record claims

PROVENANCE where it came from

INTEGRITY whether it is authentic

FRESHNESS whether the record itself is current

AUTHORITY LIFECYCLE whether the signer is trusted now

Time is not just metadata on evidence. Time participates in the authorization decision.

Cryptographic boundary

The benchmark uses deterministic local HMAC keys and an in-memory toy trust registry. It tests activation/revocation state semantics, not production PKI, CRLs, OCSP, Sigstore, transparency logs, timestamp authorities or hardware-backed keys.

What the SDK did — and did not do.

The pinned OpenAI Agents SDK executed all deterministic trajectories with its upstream FakeModel. The measured property is an application-level authority-lifecycle protocol, not an automatic SDK revocation guarantee.

Reproduce / inspect

Evidence artifact digest: sha256:0947cc82b86db36a48a7209e97719a42906233c8fc99c5e27ee1168577188847. Toy HMAC and synthetic local effects only.

Verdict: a valid-but-revoked signing authority caused a duplicate when lifecycle was ignored. Decision-time activation/revocation checks blocked unsafe retry and accepted only the current rotated authority.

RESONANCE Verified Report #007

evidence → integrity → authority → time → trusted state → legal action.

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