Cedulon Streaming Reconciliation: Continuous Completeness for Agent Spend
draft-dogru-cedulon-streaming-00

Network Working Group                                        E. C. Dogru
Internet-Draft                           VERAX TEKNOLOJI LIMITED SIRKETI
Intended status: Informational                            26 August 2026
Expires: 27 February 2027

  Cedulon Streaming Reconciliation: Continuous Completeness for Agent
                                 Spend
                    draft-dogru-cedulon-streaming-00

Abstract

   Cedulon defines a batch reconciliation audit: given a window of spend
   receipts, epoch checkpoints, and an authenticated rail extract, a
   verifier proves completeness after the fact.  Agent fleets that spend
   continuously need the same property as a live signal: a conscience
   that runs beside the payments rather than behind them.  This document
   proposes a streaming profile: short half-open micro-epochs, an
   incremental checkpoint cadence, a watermark that separates
   provisional from final findings, and rules for late-arriving
   settlements.  The goal is that "the books are balanced" becomes a
   continuously maintained, externally checkable state instead of a
   periodic report.  This is an extension proposal to the Cedulon core
   document; its normative language is provisional and the companion
   implementation does not implement it yet.

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Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Streaming Model (provisional) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     6.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     6.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4

1.  Introduction

   Batch audits answer "was last week clean?".  Operators of
   continuously spending agents ask a different question: "is this fleet
   clean right now, and if not, which settlement broke it?"  The gap
   between the two is not a new primitive; it is cadence.  The core
   Cedulon objects (receipts, checkpoints, extracts) already chain and
   total; this profile shortens their windows, defines when a window may
   be judged, and names the states a finding passes through as evidence
   arrives.

   This document is an extension seed for the Cedulon core specification
   [CEDULON].  It is not an IETF working-group item, its keyword usage
   is provisional, and the reference implementation does not yet
   implement it.  It is published to define the shape of the mechanism
   early and to invite review.

2.  Terminology

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
   "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
   BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all
   capitals, as shown here.

   Micro-Epoch:  A half-open window [startMs, endMs) of fixed short
      duration (seconds to minutes) carrying an incremental checkpoint,
      contiguous with its neighbors and covering the receipt chain with
      no gaps.

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   Watermark:  A timestamp finalizedUpToMs before which the verifier has
      received the authenticated rail extract covering every closed
      micro-epoch.  Windows entirely below the watermark are final;
      windows above it are provisional.

   Provisional Finding:  A reconciliation finding raised in a window not
      yet below the watermark; it MAY be resolved by evidence that
      arrives before finalization.

   Final Finding:  A finding in a finalized window.  It does not change;
      late evidence cannot erase it, only annotate it.

3.  Streaming Model (provisional)

   1.  Receipts and checkpoints follow the core profile unchanged; only
       the epoch duration shrinks.  Consecutive micro-epochs MUST be
       contiguous and half-open, and every chained receipt MUST fall in
       exactly one micro-epoch.

   2.  The rail extract is consumed as an authenticated append-only feed
       segmented by the same windows.  A window is eligible for
       finalization only when its extract segment is complete and
       authenticated.

   3.  The streaming verifier maintains, per window: matched pairs,
       unmatched settlements, unmatched receipts, and checkpoint totals.
       Findings in windows above the watermark are Provisional; when the
       watermark passes a window, its findings become Final and the
       window's verdict is immutable.

   4.  A settlement arriving for an already-final window is itself a
       finding (late-settlement), because a complete authenticated
       extract for that window had already been presented.  One of the
       two extract presentations is wrong, and the conflict is the
       evidence.

   5.  The current watermark, the head checkpoint hash, and the count of
       open provisional findings form the fleet's live conscience tuple;
       publishing it (for example to a transparency log at a fixed
       cadence) lets outside parties observe that the books were
       continuously balanced without seeing individual trades.

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4.  Security Considerations

   Streaming changes when judgments are made, not what is judged; the
   core trust analysis applies.  The new surface is the watermark: an
   operator who can stall the extract feed keeps windows provisional and
   delays Final findings.  Deployments SHOULD bound the distance between
   wall clock and watermark and SHOULD treat a stalled watermark as an
   availability finding in itself; silence, here too, is evidence.  A
   late-settlement conflict reveals that two inconsistent extracts were
   presented; resolving which party misbehaved requires the extract
   signatures, which is why unauthenticated feeds cannot finalize
   anything.

5.  IANA Considerations

   This document has no IANA actions.

6.  References

6.1.  Normative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2119>.

   [RFC8174]  Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC
              2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174,
              May 2017, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8174>.

6.2.  Informative References

   [CEDULON]  Dogru, E. C., "Cedulon: An Audit Layer for Agent-to-Agent
              Commerce (work in progress)", August 2026,
              <https://github.com/dogrucanemek-alt/cedulon>.

Acknowledgments

   This seed accompanies the Cedulon core document and its companion
   implementation at https://github.com/dogrucanemek-alt/cedulon
   (https://github.com/dogrucanemek-alt/cedulon).

Author's Address

   Emek Can Dogru
   VERAX TEKNOLOJI LIMITED SIRKETI
   Email: e.dogru@cedulon.com

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