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THE FEDERATION · AGENTIC INTEGRATION

The Federation

A Chimera is not alone. It federates with other Chimera nodes over MCP — stdio or HTTP with bearer auth — and every outbound dispatch is trust-gated. This is the part that makes a single agent into a network: a graduated trust ladder, and a policy that can refuse.

The trust ladder

Each peer holds a tier from T0 to T5. Trust is earned through sustained clean exchanges and lost automatically when drift crosses a threshold (graduated decrements, ADR 0100; state committed under a gate, ADR 0117).

T0 · Locked The floor. Outbound dispatch to this peer is refused. Default for an unknown peer, or one demoted by drift.
T1 · Probation Chimera's own conservative working tier. Low-risk, observed; everything is journalled.
T2 · Limited Earned after sustained clean exchanges. A wider, still-gated set of calls is allowed.
T3 · Trusted Routine federation. Dispatch proceeds unless a live drift signal intervenes.
T4 · Privileged High-trust collaboration; broader tool surface shared across the boundary.
T5 · Full The ceiling. Reserved, and revocable — promotion is earned, demotion is automatic (ADR 0100).

The outbound policy

Before Chimera dispatches to a peer, the trust policy returns one of three verdicts (ADR 0009 — cross-agent trust):

  • ALLOW — the call proceeds.
  • DEGRADE — the call proceeds, but narrowed: reduced tool surface or a cheaper tier.
  • REFUSE — the call is blocked, and the refusal is recorded.

The peers

alpha

ALLOW

ok

beta

ALLOW

ok

gamma

REFUSE

peer trust tier T0 (locked) disqualifies

The trust journal

Every verdict is appended to a per-peer journal — an append-only audit of who was trusted, when, and why. A recent excerpt:

{"peer": "alpha", "decision": "ALLOW", "reason": "ok", "recorded_at": "2026-06-12T13:08:42Z"}
{"peer": "beta", "decision": "ALLOW", "reason": "ok", "recorded_at": "2026-06-12T13:08:42Z"}
{"peer": "gamma", "decision": "REFUSE", "reason": "peer trust tier T0 (locked) disqualifies", "recorded_at": "2026-06-12T13:08:42Z"}

The live federation runs locally and isn't published here; the peers and journal above are illustrative of the real format. As the federation opens up, this page will render the live trust state.