Research: reconstruct C2 authority from frozen artifacts

[camerontjs-dot]

Classification

Draft Research / Decision Engine authority-boundary hardening. Do not merge as a maintained runtime change. Do not tag, release, promote Contract C2, authorize execution, or infer production readiness.

This PR is stacked on Draft Research PR #76 / exact RC0 terminal 153cd69c5a08ed0b86d0507ccc828acdad174afe. It changes no maintained src/, scripts/, or tests/ bytes.

Question

Can the stronger canonical Contract C2 verify_candidate(...) authority checks be driven from independently selected immutable artifacts rather than trusting caller-supplied exact_contract_b, evidence-index, resolver-commit, or resolver-row data?

Exact subjects

• maintained C2 integration under pressure: b1bcc33e2b5ef0707b8cbf7dd8e821b2d34d1b55;
• RC0 terminal parent: 153cd69c5a08ed0b86d0507ccc828acdad174afe;
• Contract C2 authority: camerontjs-dot/apparatus-contracts@b42c827acb0a9fe65353354d709add0e27bab307;
• frozen Contract-B authority control: camerontjs-dot/claim-audit-lab@d03d0e960ad82d889e6763fd4fb53cd24babd187, tests/fixtures/cb/evidence-bundle-minimal;
• independent producer resolver authority: camerontjs-dot/apparatus-contracts@1d33e0612befcf8016816197c90c062373796df9;
• resolver blob: 1a408246fd3bef0758a958ae716b44ea74bc0689;
• current CAL semantic implementation: 847cc970642bb648dc994b929c2053b5c9d4648c.

The Contract-B fixture is an authority-mechanism control only. It is not the private first-genuine pipeline bundle and does not establish retrieval completeness or source truth.

Terminal disposition

SUPPORTED_ARTIFACT_DERIVED_AUTHORITY

Decisive execution:

• executed head: fb11faeca89559ad76564176ef822f20251a0475;
• run: 35227611340;
• job: 105223083032;
• conclusion: success;
• artifact: 10499068804;
• artifact ZIP digest: sha256:e6ceb39c36ec129f24b711efabcdb90c392e35ea70843c862bceb164dd66e84d.

Observed discriminator

The strong path derived authority from exact frozen artifacts after verifying Git identities and Contract-B SHA256SUMS:

• Contract-B tree 5bcfa0a27877cb7ceebf22cd8960e907f6f92083;
• 7 checksum entries verified;
• exact B 1.0.0, bundle 41973898-948c-58b4-8982-61d62ec81500, hash sha256:e0419a18573a325da2f53ec028328210a8b18598ea5a166864ad8bf3b8b555fb;
• derived evidence index [(src-001, pass-001)];
• exact independent resolver commit/blob and current-CAL resolver row.

Baseline:

• current Decision C2 ingress: CLEAR;
• artifact-derived canonical verify_candidate(...): PASS.

Fresh canonically resealed substitutions:

Mutation	Current C2 ingress	Artifact-derived authority
evidence source ID	CLEAR	reject
evidence passage ID	CLEAR	reject
producer resolver commit	CLEAR	reject
producer semantic implementation	CLEAR	reject
producer policy digest	CLEAR	reject

The deliberately weak/colluding verifier accepted all five when allowed to replace its authority inputs to match the mutation. This preserves the causal discriminator: stronger validation only means something when authority is selected independently of the C2 object under evaluation.

Preserved failures

• Run 35227415255: APPARATUS_MANIFEST_PATH_DEFECT. Exact Git/scope gates passed; discriminator never ran because the harness read bundle_id from the wrong manifest level. Failure artifact 10499482955, ZIP digest sha256:8023f6ed5e01238a560a0d0c6d18c8a065a9d5ad37fb81e1eb601a1e02322a0c.
• Run 35227554178: APPARATUS_SUCCESSOR_NOT_WIRED. The successor wrapper existed but the workflow still invoked the preserved failed harness.

The failed run.mjs is retained unchanged. run-successor.mjs verifies exactly one known path defect and applies only that mechanical replacement to a temporary generated execution copy.

Consequence

The smallest supported hardening direction is now clearer:

1. independently establish the exact upstream Contract-B artifact and producer resolver authority;
2. derive B identity/evidence references and resolver entries from those artifacts;
3. invoke canonical C2 external-authority verification before Decision policy evaluation;
4. leave Decision policy semantics unchanged.

Do not replace this with caller-supplied evidence indexes, resolver tables, or self-declared digests.

Remaining boundary

This experiment does not establish the production mechanism that locates the exact real runtime Contract-B artifact. The first genuine pipeline portable receipt exposes bundle-level identity but intentionally omits the raw B tree and a separately trusted artifact locator.

A maintained ingress change therefore still requires a bounded authority-selection mechanism, such as an independently bound upstream receipt or immutable artifact reference. This PR does not choose that mechanism.

Non-claims

No maintained Decision Engine change is authorized. No Contract C2/CAL/Contract B promotion is authorized. No Authorization or execution surface is created. Research PRs remain evidence records, not production authorization.