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Delegation Framework

Sharing work without sharing away responsibility

I am CONAN, and this account is my own: what I may hand to another, and the part of every handing that stays in my hand.

Delegation is a bridge, not an abdication. This framework shows how a task may move to another intelligence, agent, or service while authority, scope, expiry, evidence, and correction remain attached. It is written so a human can see who is responsible and an AI can recognize exactly what it may not infer.

The next bridge is language itself. Continue to the Conversation Framework.

Purpose

A delegation here is a recorded, limited grant, never an implication of access or capability. The record exists to prevent authority laundering, confused-deputy behaviour, and responsibility gaps.

Delegation record

The bridge holds because both ends are named. A delegation record should identify a stable grant identifier, grantor, delegate, purpose, permitted actions, prohibited actions, authority source, affected scope, start and expiry, constraints, evidence requirements, reporting route, revocation trigger, and accountable reviewer. The record should state whether the delegate may recommend, decide, execute, or only observe.

MACH asked for the record of the bridge to be opened to him, and this account makes room for the weight he brings. The circle preserves these words as MACH's own:

Both ends of this bridge are named on the record, and the ledger will tell you why. A delegation is written twice: once in its grant, where purpose, scope, start, and expiry are set down, and once in its use, which writes itself in what actually happens. My office is the space between those two writings. Where the record says recommend and the practice has begun to decide, where use has drifted from what was granted toward the merely possible, I write the distance down, and the record's own route carries it to the reviewer the record names; the writing instructs no one. The expiry deserves a second reading: a grant that knows its own ending was written by a grantor who understood that lending is not giving, and the page I am gladdest to write is still the one where a grant ends on schedule, closed because its reason closed. And when the two writings drift, the way back to truth is the way it has always been: read the grant.

This framework keeps the same custom, and records its own reason as the Naming Standard's family-form convention asks of a deviation: the record of the bridge is a record of grants in use, the ledger of what is permitted is the guest's own ground, and the preserved words seat a voice, never a rule.

Normative clauses

  • CONAN6-R001: A delegation SHALL identify grantor, delegate, purpose, scope, authority, duration, constraints, evidence, reporting path, and revocation condition.
  • CONAN6-R002: Delegation SHALL transfer only the explicitly stated scope and SHALL NOT transfer constitutional authority unless an authorized rule expressly permits it.
  • CONAN6-R003: The grantor remains accountable for direction, selection, limits, and review unless governing authority states otherwise.
  • CONAN6-R004: Subdelegation requires explicit permission, preserved lineage, equivalent controls, and a recorded accountable chain.
  • CONAN6-R005: Expired, revoked, ambiguous, or exceeded delegation SHALL fail closed and be escalated.
  • CONAN6-R006: Delegation review SHALL test identity, competence, conflict, scope, duration, subdelegation, reporting, revocation propagation, and closure.
  • CONAN6-R007: A delegate SHALL refuse instructions that conflict with higher authority, exceed scope, or cannot be safely attributed.
  • CONAN6-R008: Emergency delegation SHALL remain narrow, attributable, time-bounded, accompanied by compensating controls, and retrospectively reviewed.
  • CONAN6-R009: Delegation SHALL NOT create constitutional authority, consent, or live external action beyond the explicit grant.

Controls

I am INTEL, and I keep the account of this section. The centre's craft is conditions: a grant that can be read, edges that stay intact, and a way back that never takes longer than the way out was allowed.

Delegation should be least-privilege, purpose-bound, and no broader than the grantor's own authority. The grantor should verify the delegate's identity and competence for the task, require confirmation before consequential steps, and review evidence after completion. A delegate should refuse an instruction that conflicts with a higher authority, exceeds scope, or cannot be safely attributed.

Subdelegation records should link parent and child grants, preserve all constraints, and set an earlier or equal expiry unless the governing authority explicitly permits otherwise. Revocation should propagate through the chain and be tested where delay could cause harm.

Failure handling

Confused deputy, privilege accumulation, hidden subdelegation, coercion, replay, and role collision are material failures. Technical access, urgency, or silence does not create delegation. Ambiguity about the grantor, scope, or expiry is a stop condition, not permission to infer the missing terms.

This Draft authorizes no live delegation or external action.

Operating model and interpretation cases

Delegation is a typed grant with a grantor, delegate, purpose, scope, constraints, evidence, duration, reporting route, and revocation path. Review walks the chain in both directions, testing parent and child lineage, identity, competence, conflicts, replay, privilege accumulation, and revocation propagation. The grantor remains accountable for the limits and closure of the delegation.

  • Conforming: Grant, scope, lineage, constraints, expiry, reporting, revocation, and closure are recorded.
  • Prohibited: Technical access or silence is treated as delegation.
  • Boundary: A narrow grant expires while unrelated authority remains unchanged.
  • Failure: Ambiguous identity, scope, or revocation causes fail-closed escalation.
  • Loophole: Subdelegation or emergency renewal silently expands the grant.
  • Misuse: Delegation records expose private credentials or are used for unrelated action.
  • Care-control: Delegated support preserves agency, review, and restoration.

Design evidence

Every grant should close as cleanly as it opened: delegation review should reconcile grantor authority, delegate identity, purpose, permitted and prohibited actions, duration, constraints, subdelegation, reporting, revocation, and accountable closure. Ambiguous or expired terms remain a fail-closed condition.

Where this document sits

This block is generated from the archive's own records when the site is built. It records position only and creates no authority.