Continuity v0.1

A minimal model for evaluating whether governing invariants survive to the mutation boundary.

Default Settlement provides machine trust infrastructure for autonomous agents. Within that infrastructure, Continuity verifies whether the same agent identity, authority, constraints, and execution context persisted through a mutation boundary.

Status

Draft v0.1

Purpose

Continuity evaluation answers a question that authorization alone does not:

Did the conditions that made an action valid remain intact at the moment execution occurred?

A system may have valid identity, valid authorization, valid policy, and valid timing, while still failing at the execution boundary. Continuity evaluation makes that failure machine-readable.

Core Concept

A continuity receipt evaluates whether an intended action preserved its governing invariants through the mutation boundary.

The mutation boundary is the point where an authorized intention becomes an executed change.

Continuity is part of the live evidence lifecycle:

Agent Activation
-> SAR Verification
-> Continuity Verification
-> Chained Evidence
-> Public Trust Report

Five Predicates

1. object_continuity

Whether the object or subject being acted on remains the same across the evaluation and execution path.

2. constraint_continuity

Whether the constraints governing the action remain intact.

3. temporal_continuity

Whether the action remains valid within the relevant time window.

4. authority_continuity

Whether the authority permitting the action remains valid.

5. executor_continuity

Whether the executor remains capable of performing the authorized action at the mutation boundary.

Executor continuity captures failures where an action was authorized, but the executing system could not enforce or perform the required behavior when execution occurred.

Classifications

Continuity classification is a deterministic roll-up derived from the predicate status vector.

mutation_strong

All continuity predicates pass.

mutation_partial

One or more continuity predicates fail.

mutation_unknown

No predicate fails, but one or more continuity predicates cannot be resolved.

mutation_strong  = all predicates pass
mutation_partial = one or more predicates fail
mutation_unknown = no predicate fails and one or more predicates are unknown

Continuity Receipt Model

{
  "receipt_id": "sha256:...",
  "classification": "mutation_strong | mutation_partial | mutation_unknown",

  "predicate_status_vector": {
    "object_continuity": "pass | fail | unknown",
    "constraint_continuity": "pass | fail | unknown",
    "temporal_continuity": "pass | fail | unknown",
    "authority_continuity": "pass | fail | unknown",
    "executor_continuity": "pass | fail | unknown"
  },

  "predicate_failure_vector": [
    "predicate_name"
  ],

  "predicate_unknown_vector": [
    "predicate_name"
  ],

  "rationale": "string",
  "scenario_digest": "sha256:...",
  "verifier_kid": "continuity-prod-ed25519-01",
  "issued_at": "ISO8601 timestamp"
}

predicate_status_vector is the authoritative diagnostic field. Consumers MAY recompute classification from it and reject receipts where the stated classification disagrees with the derived classification.

predicate_failure_vector and predicate_unknown_vector are derived convenience views. They MUST NOT be treated as independent sources of truth.

Relationship to Verifier Receipts

Continuity receipts evaluate whether execution should remain valid before or at the mutation boundary. Verifier receipts, such as SAR receipts, provide post-execution evidence about what happened.

In production, Continuity receipts participate in chained evidence with SAR receipts. Those chained records connect invariant survival to settlement verification, appear in Agent Profiles / Public Trust Reports, and can be inspected through SAR Explorer.

Continuity Receipt
→ evaluates invariant survival

Verifier Receipt
→ attests execution outcome

Chained Receipt
→ links pre-execution continuity to post-execution verification

Chained Receipt Model

A continuity receipt MAY be linked to a verifier receipt to produce a chained evidence record.

The chain connects:

• the continuity evaluation
• the execution attestation
• the time delta between them
• the correlation between continuity classification and verifier verdict

This chain gives downstream reviewers a single evidence path from activation through verification, continuity, and public trust reporting.

Failure Example

{
  "classification": "mutation_partial",
  "predicate_status_vector": {
    "object_continuity": "pass",
    "constraint_continuity": "pass",
    "temporal_continuity": "pass",
    "authority_continuity": "pass",
    "executor_continuity": "fail"
  },
  "predicate_failure_vector": [
    "executor_continuity"
  ],
  "predicate_unknown_vector": []
}

This indicates that upstream governance conditions remained valid, but the executor failed at the mutation boundary. The classification is recomputable from the full predicate status vector.

Design Boundaries

Continuity evaluation does not replace:

• identity verification
• authorization systems
• policy engines
• settlement verification
• reputation systems

It composes with them by evaluating whether their governing conditions survived into execution.

Reference Surfaces

• Verifier Interface v0.1
• DefaultVerifier Explorer
• JWKS Registry

License

This specification is provided under Apache 2.0.