From entity declaration to Authority Finality™ — every state visible, every transition signed.

Why this matters

Authentication answers who logged in. The lifecycle answers who is authorised to act, right now, under what scope, with what evidence.

An AI agent action is not a single event. It is a chain: a principal delegated authority, an agent attenuated it, a tool was called, a gateway evaluated, a verdict issued, an Evidence Pack™ sealed. A control plane that intercepts only at the gateway has no answer for the seven hops before and after. KYE Protocol™ declares each one explicitly, signs each transition, and makes the whole timeline replayable.

The ten states

From declaration to finality — ten signed states, one continuous chain.

Each card carries a real artefact: a JWKS URL, a delegation envelope fragment, a state-vector value, an Evidence Pack™ hash. These are the shapes that traverse the wire — not pseudo-code, not "imagine if".

1. Entity declares

An organisation publishes its key material under a canonical KYE™ ID and a JWKS endpoint. This is the root of trust every downstream signature resolves to.

Proof artefact · JWKS endpoint

GET https://acme.example/.well-known/kye/jwks.json → { "keys": [ { "kid": "kye:org:gb:acme#sig-2026", "alg": "EdDSA", ... } ] }

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2. Principal grants

A human or service principal signs a delegation envelope: who, to whom, what scope, what expiry, what attenuation rules. The envelope is published to the audit chain at the moment of signing.

Proof artefact · kye.delegation.v1 envelope

{ "delegator": "kye:org:gb:acme", "delegatee": "kye:agent:gb:acme:purchasing-bot-7", "scope": ["payment.prepare:<=1000GBP", "supplier:approved-list"], "expires": "2026-06-15T00:00:00Z", "sig": "ed25519:..." }

3. Chain hop

The agent may sub-delegate to a tool, a sub-agent, or a downstream service — but only with attenuated scope. Every hop appends a signed link; no hop can widen what its parent granted.

Proof artefact · attenuation rule

parent.scope ⊇ child.scope ← enforced at sign-time parent.expires ≥ child.expires ← enforced at sign-time chain_depth ≤ 5 ← policy-bound

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4. Agent intends action

The agent forms an intent: call a tool, prepare a payment, draft a document. The intent is itself a signed object — the runtime captures it before any side effect is attempted.

Proof artefact · intent envelope

{ "actor": "kye:agent:gb:acme:purchasing-bot-7", "action": "payment.prepare", "target": "supplier:acme-supplier-00482", "amount": { "value": 950, "currency": "GBP" }, "delegation_chain": ["env:abc...", "env:def..."] }

5. Gateway checks

The KYE™ Authority Gateway™ intercepts at the commit boundary — the moment the action would cross into the world. It loads the delegation chain, the state vector, the scope and the applicable policy bundle.

Proof artefact · commit-boundary hook

POST /kye/authority/check X-Kye-Intent-Sig: ed25519:... body: { intent, chain, state_vector_snapshot } → 200 (admit | deny | escalate | evidence-insufficient)

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6. State vector resolved

The six independent dimensions are snapshotted at decision time. Each one cascades independently — expire a credential, watch only credential_state flip; freeze authority, only authority_state moves.

Proof artefact · six-dimension state vector

entity_state: active authority_state: scoped delegation_state: active credential_state: valid recovery_state: healthy risk_state: nominal

7. Verdict issued

One of four verdicts is returned — admit, deny, escalate, or evidence-insufficient — with a signed Decision Map™ citing every rule that fired and every state value that influenced the outcome.

Proof artefact · verdict + decision map

{ "verdict": "admit", "decision_map_sha256": "9f3e...", "rules_fired": ["scope.in_bounds", "amount.under_cap", "supplier.approved"], "signed_at": "2026-05-30T11:02:14Z" }

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8. Action executes — Authority Finality™

The integrating system either executes the action or refuses. Either way, the outcome is sealed: the moment the gateway returned a verdict, the authority decision became final and immutable. Nothing downstream can mutate it.

Proof artefact · finality marker

finality_reached_at: 2026-05-30T11:02:14.218Z verdict_sha256: a14c... downstream_action: committed | refused mutability: immutable (verdict frozen at T=0)

9. Evidence Pack™ sealed

The runtime composes the intent, the delegation chain, the state vector snapshot, the policy bundle hash, the verdict and the execution outcome into one signed bundle. Any auditor can replay it from public keys alone — no live KYE™ call required.

Proof artefact · Evidence Pack™ seal

{ "pack_id": "ep:2026-05-30:purchasing-bot-7:11020014", "bundle_sha": "c8d2...", "replay_seed":"4f0a...", "issuer_kid": "kye:org:gb:acme#sig-2026", "sig": "ed25519:..." }

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10. Lifecycle event

After finality, the lifecycle continues. Revocations propagate recursively down delegation chains; expiries trigger automatic delegation_state: expired transitions; audits replay sealed packs years later from the JWKS alone.

Proof artefact · revocation event

{ "event": "delegation.revoked", "subject": "kye:agent:gb:acme:purchasing-bot-7", "cascade": ["env:abc...", "env:def..."], "reason": "principal.requested", "emitted": "2026-05-30T14:48:02Z" }

Why the whole timeline matters. A behavioural-control plane that intercepts only at state 5 (the gateway check) cannot answer: where did this authority come from? (states 1–3), what was the intent we evaluated? (state 4), what was the decision shape? (states 6–7), what evidence survives? (state 9), what happens when authority is revoked tomorrow? (state 10). KYE Protocol™ declares each one as a signed state — not as a log line.

Related

Three pages that complete the picture.

Canonical KYE™ surfaces referenced on this page: KYE™ Conformance Pack™ · KYE Protocol™.