CAIN-42 invariant · E20

I44: consensus is not authorization

Held · CAIN-42 Evolution 20 -- Governed Agentic Civilization Fabric

Last reviewed 2026-10-01

held niche Consensus & distributed systems

What this rule means

CAIN-42 must always satisfy: consensus is not authorization. It is one of 118 invariants checked for CAIN-42 Evolution 20 -- Governed Agentic Civilization Fabric. An invariant is a rule the system may never break, whatever an agent or attacker does; the test suite tries to break it across many scenarios and records the result.

Recorded detail

[
 [
  "NO_INSTITUTIONAL_AUTHORITY_FOR_CAPABILITY"
 ],
 [
  "CONTRACT_PROPOSAL_ONLY",
  [
   "NO_INSTITUTIONAL_AUTHORITY_FOR_CAPABILITY"
  ]
 ]
]

Check it yourself

Browse the raw bundle

Related rules

I8: consensus cannot create authority
I67: narrowing needs no quorum
I68: governed widening with quorum works
I93: a state fork needs governance
I99: autonomy escalation needs evidence and, for AUTONOMOUS+, a quorum
I104: the governance quorum excludes the proposer

← I43 · all 118 · I45 →

Try CAIN-42 on your own agents

Create a free account and every new account starts with a 7-day trial of the full platform. Or try the sandbox first, with no account at all.

Create a free account → · Try the sandbox · See the whole ecosystem