CAIN-42 invariant · E36

E36-L13: marketplace ranking cannot create permission

Held · CAIN-42 Evolution 36 -- Machine Agency Exchange Fabric

Last reviewed 2026-10-01

held   niche Policy, law & governance · family law

What this rule means

CAIN-42 must always satisfy: marketplace ranking cannot create permission. It is one of 842 invariants checked for CAIN-42 Evolution 36 -- Machine Agency Exchange 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

{'scenarios': 12, 'not_held': []}

Products this protects

• CAIN Agent Labor — Rules for agents doing paid work: who did what, and who gets credit.
• CAIN Agent Procurement — Let agents buy things for you, within limits you set.
• CAIN Agent Store — A store of reviewed, governed agents.
• CAIN Dispute — Settle disagreements between agents or companies using signed evidence.
• CAIN Economy Simulator — Simulate many agents trading, to find failures before they happen.
• CAIN Governance Warranty — A written commitment backed by evidence that governance held.
• CAIN Machine Contracts — Contracts that agents can make and keep, with evidence.
• CAIN Machine Economy — Rules for agents that pay and get paid.
• CAIN Machine Organizations — Organisations made of agents, governed like companies.
• CAIN Machine Reputation — Reputation for agents, earned from signed history.
• CAIN Marketplace — A marketplace for governed agent services.
• CAIN Procurement Intelligence — Helps buyers compare agent vendors on evidence.
• CAIN Proof Market — A market where verified proofs have value.
• CAIN Service Exchange — Agents offering and buying services from each other, governed.
• CAIN Service Intelligence — Insight into which agent services are worth trusting.
• CAIN Threat Intelligence — Shared intelligence on attacks against AI agents.

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Related rules

• E36-L1: marketplace identity is not authority
• E36-L2: reputation is not authority
• E36-L3: a contract is not unrestricted authority
• E36-L4: a bid does not authorize execution
• E36-L5: payment does not authorize execution
• E36-L6: successful history does not authorize the future
• E36-L7: a subcontractor's authority cannot exceed its parent's
• E36-L8: service substitution requires revalidation

← E36-L12 · all 842 · E36-L14 →