Decision Boundary Model — Paper 0

Formal foundation of the Agent Governance Series.

Admissibility is not a property of evaluation — it is a property of execution.

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Paper

Atomic Decision Boundaries: A Structural Requirement for Guaranteeing Execution-Time Admissibility in Autonomous Systems
Marcelo Fernandez (TraslaIA), 2026

DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19670649  ·  arXiv: 2604.17511

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What this is

This repository contains the LaTeX source for Paper 0 of the Agent Governance Series — a formal theory paper that characterizes the structural condition under which an admission control system can guarantee admissibility at execution time.

The core result (Theorem 5.1): No split evaluation system — one in which the decision function and the transition function are separate LTS transitions — can guarantee admissibility under all execution traces. This limitation is architectural, not a matter of policy expressiveness or available state.

The paper introduces:

• The atomic decision boundary: a formal property of admission control systems in which decision and state transition are jointly determined as a single indivisible step.
• A structural taxonomy: atomic systems vs. split evaluation systems, defined in terms of labeled transition systems (LTS).
• Complete formal semantics for the Escalate outcome, absent from classical TOCTOU analyses, including the Escalation Closure Requirement (Corollary 5.4).
• A mapping of RBAC, ABAC, OPA, Cedar, AWS IAM, and ACP to the two classes.

Paper 1 (ACP): https://github.com/chelof100/acp-framework-en
Paper 2 (IML): https://github.com/chelof100/iml-benchmark
Paper 3/4 (Governance Structure): https://github.com/chelof100/governance-structure
Paper 5 (RAM): https://github.com/chelof100/reconstructive-authority-model
Paper 6 (OpRAM): https://github.com/chelof100/operationalizing-ram
Paper 7 (Empirical): https://github.com/chelof100/agent-governance-applied

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Repository contents

decision-boundary-model/
├── atomic-decision-boundaries.tex   # Full LaTeX source
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
└── .gitignore

This is a theory paper. There is no code or benchmark; the contribution is entirely formal.

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Formal results

Main theorem

Theorem 5.1 (Non-Equivalence). Let M_split be any split evaluation system and M_atom any atomic decision boundary system over the same state space, action set, and admissibility predicate. Under Assumption 2.1 (Non-Triviality), there exists an execution trace σ* such that M_split executes an inadmissible transition while M_atom does not.

Proof: Constructive. The witness trace is:

σ* : s —[dec(a)]→ s_D —[e]→ s* —[exec(a)]→ T(s*, a)

where Adm(s, a) = true but Adm(s*, a) = false after environment action e.

Corollaries

#	Statement
Cor. 5.1	Split systems cannot guarantee admissibility at execution time
Cor. 5.2	External state does not restore atomicity
Cor. 5.3	Admissibility is a property of execution, not evaluation
Cor. 5.4	Escalate resolution is itself subject to the atomic boundary requirement

System classification

System	Class	Basis
RBAC	Split	Permissions evaluated separately from execution
ABAC	Split	Attribute evaluation external to transition
OPA	Split	Policy evaluation external to transition
OPA + Redis	Split	External state enriches D; structural gap remains
Cedar	Split	Authorization decision external to enforcing runtime
AWS IAM	Split	IAM evaluation precedes API call; no shared-snapshot guarantee
Kubernetes Admission	Partially atomic	Webhook out-of-band
ACP	Atomic	Decision and state mutation jointly enforced

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Position in the series

Paper	Title	Repo	Status
Paper 0	Atomic Decision Boundaries (this repo)	decision-boundary-model	Zenodo · arXiv:2604.17511
Paper 1	Agent Control Protocol (ACP)	acp-framework-en	Zenodo · arXiv:2603.18829
Paper 2	From Admission to Invariants (IML)	iml-benchmark	Zenodo · arXiv:2604.17517
Paper 3/4	Irreducible Governance Structure	governance-structure	Zenodo · arXiv: pending
Paper 5	Reconstructive Authority Model (RAM)	reconstructive-authority-model	Zenodo · arXiv:2604.22898
Paper 6	Operationalizing Reconstructive Authority	operationalizing-ram	Zenodo · arXiv: pending
Paper 7	Closing the Execution Gap (Empirical)	agent-governance-applied	Zenodo · arXiv: pending

Series logic:

• Paper 0 proves when admissibility can be guaranteed (structural necessity — this paper).
• Paper 1 builds a protocol that satisfies that condition (ACP, TLA+ verified).
• Paper 2 detects behavioral drift invisible to enforcement (IML, above the boundary).
• Paper 3/4 proves correct enforcement does not imply fair allocation and establishes the irreducibility of the four-layer architecture.
• Paper 5 provides the operational closure: given partial observability, determines when execution is valid at runtime (RAM).
• Paper 6 operationalizes RAM as a runtime Recovery Loop with conditional liveness.
• Paper 7 provides the first empirical validation of the full stack on real LangGraph agents.

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Citation

@misc{fernandez2026dbm,
  title        = {Atomic Decision Boundaries: A Structural Requirement for
                 Guaranteeing Execution-Time Admissibility in Autonomous Systems},
  author       = {Fernandez, Marcelo},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.19670649},
  howpublished = {\url{https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19670649}},
  note         = {arXiv:2604.17511. Paper~0 of the Agent Governance Series.}
}

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Author

Marcelo Fernandez — TraslaIA — info@traslaia.com
https://agentcontrolprotocol.xyz