amduat/docs/federation-implementation-notes.md

Federation Implementation Notes (Core)

Status: Draft Owner: Architecture Version: 0.1.0 SoT: No Last Updated: 2025-02-XX

Purpose

These notes bind the federation semantics docs to concrete core-library responsibilities, APIs, and data structures. The intent is to keep federation logic inside the core substrate and keep daemon/frontends thin.

Normative inputs

Core semantics and replay:

• tier1/asl-federation-1.md
• tier1/asl-federation-replay-1.md
• tier1/asl-store-index-1.md
• tier1/enc-asl-core-index-1.md

Admission and policy gating:

• tier1/asl-dap-1.md
• tier1/asl-policy-hash-1.md
• tier1/asl-domain-model-1.md
• tier1/asl-dam-1.md

Contextual alignment:

• tier1/asl-system-1.md
• tier1/asl-encrypted-blocks-1.md

Scope (core library)

Federation MUST be implemented as core substrate logic:

• Deterministic federation view construction.
• Replay ordering and bounds per domain.
• Imported record metadata preservation (domain_id, visibility, cross_domain_source).
• Tombstone and shadowing behavior per domain.

The following are explicitly out of scope for core:

• Transport protocols (HTTP, IPC, gossip).
• Peer discovery and operational orchestration.
• Admin UX and deployment wiring.
• Admission workflows, auth, and retries/backoff.
• Cache policy knobs (fetch timing, eviction, prefetch).
• Operational concerns (metrics, admin endpoints).
• Policy evaluation and per-record filtering decisions.

Layering note

Core provides deterministic federation semantics and view construction only. Middle-layer components are responsible for transport, admission workflows, policy evaluation (including per-record filtering), caching strategies, and operational wiring.

Definition:

• Middle layer: the daemon/service boundary around core logic that owns network transport, admission workflows, and operational policy.

Responsibilities

1. Federation registry

   • Tracks known domains, admission status, policy hash, and last admitted {SnapshotID, LogPrefix}.
   • Enforces DAP + policy compatibility prior to admitting remote state.

2. Federation view cache

   • Materializes a deterministic view from local state + admitted published records from other domains.
   • Stores imported records with origin metadata for replay.
   • Tracks per-domain replay high-water {domain_id, logseq}.

3. Resolver

   • Resolves ArtifactKey using local store + federation view.
   • Does not mutate store/index as part of GET semantics.

Data model (suggested)

typedef enum {
    AMDUAT_FED_REC_ARTIFACT = 0,
    AMDUAT_FED_REC_PER      = 1,
    AMDUAT_FED_REC_TGK_EDGE = 2,
    AMDUAT_FED_REC_TOMBSTONE = 3
} amduat_fed_record_type_t;

typedef struct {
    uint32_t domain_id;
    uint64_t snapshot_id;
    uint64_t log_prefix;
    uint64_t last_logseq;
    uint8_t  admitted;     // boolean
    uint8_t  policy_ok;    // boolean
    uint8_t  reserved[6];
    amduat_hash_id_t policy_hash_id;
    amduat_octets_t  policy_hash;
} amduat_fed_domain_state_t;

typedef struct {
    uint32_t domain_id;
    uint8_t  visibility;   // 0 internal, 1 published
    uint8_t  has_source;   // 0/1
    uint16_t reserved0;
    uint32_t source_domain;
} amduat_fed_record_meta_t;

typedef struct {
    amduat_fed_record_type_t type;
    union {
        amduat_asl_artifact_key_t artifact_key;
        amduat_asl_tgk_edge_key_t tgk_edge_key;
        amduat_asl_per_key_t      per_key;
        amduat_asl_artifact_key_t tombstone_key; // key being removed
    } id;
} amduat_fed_record_id_t;

typedef struct {
    amduat_fed_record_meta_t meta;
    amduat_fed_record_id_t id;
    amduat_asl_artifact_location_t loc;
    uint64_t logseq;
    uint64_t snapshot_id;
    uint64_t log_prefix;
} amduat_fed_index_record_t;

typedef struct {
    amduat_fed_record_id_t id;
    uint32_t reason_code;  // policy-specific; 0 if unknown
} amduat_fed_policy_deny_t;

Notes:

• Imported records MUST retain domain_id and cross-domain source metadata.
• Tombstones must retain domain_id/visibility for domain-local shadowing.
• Each record MUST include a record type and canonical identity for deterministic replay across artifacts, PERs, TGK edges, and tombstones.
• PER/TGK canonical identities are currently represented by ASL references (artifact IDs); no separate edge/PER key types exist yet.

Core API sketch

typedef struct amduat_fed_registry_t amduat_fed_registry_t;
typedef struct amduat_fed_view_t     amduat_fed_view_t;

amduat_fed_registry_t *amduat_fed_registry_open(...);
void amduat_fed_registry_close(amduat_fed_registry_t *);

// Admission + policy gating
bool amduat_fed_admit_domain(amduat_fed_registry_t *, domain_id, policy_hash, ...);
bool amduat_fed_set_domain_state(amduat_fed_registry_t *, domain_id,
                                 snapshot_id, log_prefix);

// Ingest published records for a domain (already transported).
// Each record MUST include its type and canonical identity in the id field.
bool amduat_fed_ingest_records(amduat_fed_registry_t *, domain_id,
                               const amduat_fed_index_record_t *records,
                               size_t count);

// Build or refresh a deterministic federation view.
amduat_fed_view_t *amduat_fed_view_build(amduat_fed_registry_t *,
                                         const amduat_asl_store_t *local_store,
                                         const amduat_asl_index_state_t *local_state);

// Resolve via local store + federated view.
amduat_asl_store_error_t amduat_fed_resolve(
    const amduat_fed_view_t *view,
    const amduat_asl_artifact_key_t *key,
    amduat_bytes_t *out_bytes);

Notes:

• Transport fetch is not part of resolve; it only consumes ingested records.
• The daemon can choose to fetch missing bytes when resolve reports a remote reference but local bytes are absent.
• If per-record filtering is enabled, it is applied during ingest or view build and any denials are recorded in view metadata (e.g., a table of amduat_fed_policy_deny_t).

Replay and view construction

Rules are as per ASL/FEDERATION-REPLAY/1:

• Records are ordered by (logseq asc, canonical identity tie-break).
• Replay is bounded by {SnapshotID, LogPrefix} per domain.
• Tombstones shadow only within their source domain.
• Imported entries keep domain_id + cross_domain_source.

The view is the union of:

1. Local domain internal + published state at local {SnapshotID, LogPrefix}.
2. Admitted foreign published state at each domain's {SnapshotID, LogPrefix}.

Cache and storage

Federation view storage MAY be:

• In-memory (ephemeral), or
• On-disk index segments with federation metadata populated.

If remote bytes are fetched, they MUST be written to a cache store that is logically separate from the authoritative local store (policy-controlled).

Federation API overview

Core federation primitives are exposed via:

• include/amduat/fed/registry.h
• include/amduat/fed/ingest.h
• include/amduat/fed/replay.h
• include/amduat/fed/view.h

Integration example (core flow)

amduat_fed_registry_store_t reg_store;
amduat_fed_registry_value_t reg_value;
amduat_fed_domain_state_t reg_states[8];

amduat_fed_registry_value_init(&reg_value, reg_states, 8);
amduat_fed_registry_store_init(&reg_store, local_store);
amduat_fed_registry_store_put(&reg_store, &reg_value, &reg_ref, NULL);

if (amduat_fed_ingest_validate(records, record_count, NULL, NULL) !=
    AMDUAT_FED_INGEST_OK) {
  return false;
}

if (!amduat_fed_view_build(records,
                           record_count,
                           local_domain_id,
                           bounds,
                           bounds_len,
                           denies,
                           denies_len,
                           &view)) {
  return false;
}

resolve_err = amduat_fed_resolve(&view, local_store, ref, &artifact);

Policy gating

• Admission gating is per-domain.
• Per-record filtering is optional and MUST be an explicit, deterministic policy layer if enabled.

Error reporting

Core resolve should distinguish:

• NOT_FOUND (no record in local or federation view)
• FOUND_REMOTE_NO_BYTES (record exists in view but bytes missing locally)
• INTEGRITY_ERROR (hash mismatch on bytes)
• POLICY_DENIED (domain admitted but record filtered by policy)

Notes:

• When per-record filtering is enabled, POLICY_DENIED SHOULD surface at ingest or view-build time by excluding filtered records from the view and recording the denial in view metadata. Resolve MAY return POLICY_DENIED only when such a denial is recorded for the queried key; otherwise it MUST return NOT_FOUND.

Remote fetch guidance

Core resolve returns only artifact references. The middle layer is responsible for fetching remote bytes by reference over its transport and caching them separately from the authoritative local store.

Ownership and lifecycle

• amduat_fed_registry_decode allocates policy hash buffers; free with amduat_fed_registry_value_free.
• amduat_fed_registry_encode returns allocated bytes; free with amduat_octets_free.
• amduat_fed_view_build allocates view records and denies; free with amduat_fed_view_free.
• amduat_fed_replay_domain allocates replay records; free with amduat_fed_replay_view_free.

Middle-layer fetch example (informative)

err = amduat_fed_resolve(view, local_store, ref, &artifact);
if (err == AMDUAT_FED_RESOLVE_FOUND_REMOTE_NO_BYTES) {
  if (fetch_remote_bytes(ref, &artifact) && cache_store_put(artifact)) {
    err = amduat_fed_resolve(view, local_store, ref, &artifact);
  }
}

Tests (minimal)

1. Replay ordering determinism across two domains with interleaved logseq.
2. Tombstone shadowing is domain-local.
3. Imported record metadata preserved in view and survives rebuild.
4. Conflict: same ArtifactKey with different bytes across domains rejected.
5. Bound replay by {SnapshotID, LogPrefix} produces stable view.