Phase C – The Trust Thesis

Versions: v0.9.0 – v0.12.0 Question: Can independent sovereigns recognize each other and revoke trust across boundaries?

What Changed

SovereignIdentity and MembershipAttestation models were introduced alongside a local recognition policy. An attestation verifier checked issuer recognition, signature, validity window, status, role, and local revocation — producing structured TrustDecision results with audit-ready reason codes.

Local configuration became a signed on-network artifact via RecognitionTreaty. Treaty-backed attestation verification, treaty issue/revoke endpoints, public treaty read endpoints, and a /recognition-graph export endpoint followed. The graph export shipped three releases before the Connectome visualization, making the data observable from the moment treaties existed.

Cross-sovereign revocation propagation was added: a sovereign that accepts another sovereign’s attestations must also learn when those are revoked. SovereignRevocationFeed with signature verification and sequence-based stale-feed rejection ensured a revoked attestation could not be replayed.

The Connectome completed the phase: /connectome.json for machines, /connectome for browsers, /connectome/trust-path for explaining specific decisions, and revocation blast-radius summaries. The Connectome consumes /recognition-graph — it is one view over signed protocol data, not a second source of truth.

Value Added

• Two sovereigns can recognize each other through signed treaties.

• Attestations issued by one sovereign are verifiable by another that holds a treaty toward the issuer.

• Revocations propagate across organizational boundaries via signed feeds.

• Every trust decision can be explained through the recognition graph without re-running any query.

What Became Possible

The trust machinery existed in code. Phase D proved it worked between genuinely independent infrastructure on different cloud providers.

Key Releases

Version	Milestone
v0.9.0	SovereignIdentity, MembershipAttestation, local recognition policy, TrustDecision
v0.10.0	RecognitionTreaty, treaty-backed verification, /recognition-graph export
v0.11.0	SovereignRevocationFeed, sequence-based stale-feed rejection, cross-sovereign revocation
v0.12.0	Connectome: /connectome.json, /connectome browser view, trust-path explanation