Protocol Boundaries¶

What ACGP Standardizes¶

ACGP standardizes runtime governance semantics for agent systems. In v1.0 alpha, that includes:

governance evaluation semantics and intervention meaning
trace, evaluation, and audit-visible artifact expectations
tripwire and threshold behavior
Trust Debt observable semantics and runtime posture effects
conformance surfaces and claim language

This is the protocol boundary: ACGP defines what governed actions mean and how those outcomes remain visible across implementations.

What Deployments Still Own¶

Deployments still own the surrounding trust and operations model. That includes:

identity provider integration
certificate and key lifecycle management
trust-root distribution and rotation workflows
federation across organizations or trust domains
operational topology and service placement
remote assurance controls for local fast-path deployments

ACGP gives these deployment choices a stable governance layer, but it does not replace them.

Identity Meaning vs Identity Proof¶

agent_id is the stable governed principal identifier within a deployment-defined trust domain. It is not, by itself, cryptographic proof of identity.

See ACGP-7: Agent Principal Identity for the normative identity semantics.

Profile-Failure Fallback vs Evaluation-Timeout Policy¶

Profile-failure fallback handles Steward/session-path unavailability. Evaluation-timeout policy handles an exceeded negotiated latency budget while the Steward/session path remains available.

Runtime Governance Contracts are a preview extension. They do not alter the active ACGP v1.0 Standard conformance claim unless a future extension suite activates them.

Unsupported preview semantics must not be silently claimed as part of the active Standard surface.

See Runtime Governance Contracts for the preview extension details.

Trust Bootstrap and Steward Trust Roots¶

Serious deployments still need a trust bootstrap story outside protocol core. In practice, that means a steward trust-root artifact, distribution of trust material, validated service identity binding, and operational procedures for rotation and revocation.

Use Bootstrap Trust for the procedural deployment guide, the repository SECURITY.md for the security policy boundary, and the conformance vectors for machine-checked bootstrap expectations.

Local Tier-0 Fast Path and Remote Assurance¶

Local Tier-0 fast path is an optimization, not a trust anchor.

Deployments still need remote sampling, remote verification, or other operator controls when local approval paths are enabled. Without those controls, a compromised SDK can bypass local-only checks and suppress the visibility the remote steward depends on.

Core vs Preview vs Future Material¶

Standard is the active claimable alpha profile.
Regulated Controls Badge is additive to the active Standard claim.
Dev Mode is non-conformant.
Runtime Governance Contracts are preview extension material.
Safety-Critical control material remains in the repository for future-track continuity, but Safety-Critical conformance claims are not available in v1.0.0-alpha.2.