Internet Engineering Task Force D. O. Watts Internet-Draft GoodShyt Group Inc. Intended status: Informational 14 October 2026 Expires: 14 April 2027 High-Assurance Agent Control Envelope draft-watts-high-assurance-agent-control-envelope-00 Abstract Agentic systems can authenticate successfully, hold a valid authorization object, and still be unsafe to execute because required evidence is missing, the software has not reached a required assurance stage, the authority epoch is stale, a prior revocation is unresolved, or a human-approval requirement is unsatisfied. This document defines the High-Assurance Agent Control Envelope (HAACE), a protocol-neutral profile that binds an exact agent action to identity status, authorization state, policy, assurance stage, evidence state, authority epoch, revocation state, oversight requirements, and an action-time decision. HAACE requires fail-closed treatment of missing or indeterminate prerequisites, separates authorization from execution, and produces non-bearer decision and execution receipts. 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), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. 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." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at https://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at https://www.ietf.org/shadow.html This Internet-Draft will expire on 14 April 2027. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Simplified BSD License. 1. Introduction High-consequence agent deployments combine workload identity, delegated authorization, evidence or attestation, policy evaluation, revocation, software-assurance evidence, human oversight, and execution logging. A recurring systems failure occurs when one valid artifact is silently treated as sufficient for a stronger conclusion. HAACE defines a narrow execution-gate profile. A relying party declares an Assurance Requirement Profile (ARP). An agent or intermediary presents an Action Request Record (ARR). An independent Action Control Point (ACP) evaluates it and emits a non-bearer Action Decision Receipt (ADR). Execution is recorded separately in an Action Execution Receipt (AER). 2. Core Requirements Identity is not authorization. Evidence is not authority. Authorization is not execution. Unknown is not allow. Revocation request is not closure. Software assurance does not self-promote. Agent self-approval is invalid when independent approval is required. 3. Action-Time Decision A conforming ACP validates ARR syntax and action binding, identity, independent authorization, current authority epoch, required revocation closure state, software-assurance stage, required evidence, policy digest, independent human approval when required, and the exact action presented at the effect boundary. ALLOW is returned only when every required predicate is satisfied. Known failure returns DENY. A required predicate that cannot be established returns INDETERMINATE. INDETERMINATE MUST NOT be treated as ALLOW. 4. Conformance A conforming implementation MUST reproduce the companion vector suite. It is non-conformant if valid identity alone yields ALLOW, if UNKNOWN evidence yields ALLOW, if a stale authority epoch is accepted, if local conformance satisfies an independent-reproduction requirement, or if an agent satisfies an independent approval requirement with its own approval. 5. Security Considerations Threats include action substitution, stale-epoch replay, self-issued authorization, evidence substitution, policy downgrade, confused-deputy behavior, delegation laundering, forged or replayed approval, queued effects after revocation, and fail-open handling of ACP outages. The ACP and effect boundary SHOULD be controlled independently of the agent. Receipts preserve what was evaluated; they do not prove that external evidence was true, that a model was safe, or that a deployment is secure. 6. IANA Considerations This document has no IANA actions. Author's Address Deonte O'dell Watts GoodShyt Group Inc. San Francisco, CA United States of America Email: deonte@goodshyt.fun ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8586-3650