EMILIA Protocol, Inc.

USteam@emiliaprotocol.ai

sec AI agentsremedyrefundreconciliation Revocation cannot undo an effect that already occurred. A dispute does not authorize a refund, return, reversal, or other remedy. This document defines Action Remedy Receipts for recording a bounded dispute decision and a fresh compensating action without rewriting the original action or effect. Every remedy has its own operation identifier, CAID, action digest, authority, consequence owner, and execution result. Indeterminate outcomes remain fenced until authenticated reconciliation.

Introduction Consequential systems need a lifecycle after execution: late revocation, dispute intake, decision, remedy authorization, remedy execution, and reconciliation. Collapsing these steps creates two unsafe fictions: that revocation rewrites history, or that opening a dispute authorizes a compensating effect. This document defines a signed record family that preserves the original effect and binds each later step. It does not define legal entitlement, adjudication, insurance coverage, payment finality, or a universal remedy policy. It uses CAID for exact compensating-action identity, composes with the AEB lifecycle , and preserves the separate revocation semantics in .

TerminologyThe key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 when, and only when, they appear in all capitals.

Lifecycle Invariants

1. A revocation withdraws future authority for its exact target. It MUST NOT relabel or delete an earlier provider result.
2. A dispute is a bounded challenge and evidence set. It MUST NOT be treated as a decision or remedy authorization.
3. A decision is separately authorized and bound to one dispute. It MAY authorize no remedy or one or more bounded remedy legs.
4. Every remedy leg is a fresh compensating action. It MUST use a new operation identifier and a different action digest from the original.
5. An uncertain original or remedy effect remains INDETERMINATE. It MUST NOT be blindly retried or called reversed.

The Remedy Receipt An EP-ACTION-REMEDY-v1 payload contains exactly these logical groups:

case

case_id, tenant or reliance domain, opened_at, and the pinned remedy-profile digest.

original

original operation_id, CAID, action_digest, consequence owner, owner-profile digest, terminal evidence digest, and observed owner result.

dispute

dispute_id, challenger, evidence digests, requested remedy units and unit, and opening time.

decision

decision artifact digest, verifier profile, decision authority, decision time, and result of no_remedy or remedy_authorized.

remedy

new operation_id, CAID, action_digest, destination binding, units, unit, selected consequence owner, owner-profile digest, and authority evidence digests.

result

authorized, claimed, executed, refused, indeterminate, or reconciled, plus authenticated owner evidence and observation time.

The signed payload MUST bind all groups that apply to its state and a monotonic revision. Unknown members are refused unless a negotiated extension profile defines their signing and processing semantics.

Processing Model

Open a CaseThe relying party MUST verify that the original operation, action digest, CAID, owner result, and terminal evidence refer to the same protected effect. If the original result is INDETERMINATE, the case can accept petition evidence but MUST NOT authorize an effectful remedy until authenticated reconciliation establishes EXECUTED.

Decide SeparatelyThe decision verifier, trust roots, policy, and decision authority are relying-party inputs. A valid dispute signature does not grant decision authority. A decision of no_remedy closes the case without inventing a compensating action. A remedy authorization MUST bind the exact remedy leg and a limit no greater than the remaining case amount.

Execute a Fresh Compensating Action The remedy operation_id, action_digest, and CAID MUST differ from the original. The compensating action then traverses the same evidence, authorization, durable claim, provider invocation, and reconciliation controls as any other consequential action. The original record remains immutable. An implementation MUST represent rollback as false: the protocol records compensation, not time reversal. A physical return, monetary refund, fee reversal, inventory change, and entitlement revocation are different material effects. Each MUST be a separately bound leg. A shared decision can authorize multiple legs, but evidence for one leg MUST NOT be replayed as another.

Reconcile UncertaintyAn indeterminate remedy remains claimed and fenced. Authenticated evidence for the same operation MAY establish executed or proved_no_effect. The latter returns the case to its prior disputed state without consuming remedy units. Conflicting or mismatched evidence leaves the operation indeterminate.

Claim Boundary A valid receipt can show that named parties signed the bounded case, decision, remedy, and owner evidence and that the technical bindings are internally consistent. It does not prove legal liability, consumer entitlement, adjudicator correctness, availability of funds, delivery of goods, or reversal of an external effect beyond the accepted owner evidence.

Security Considerations Implementations MUST refuse original/remedy action equality, operation replay, authority substitution, decision/dispute role substitution, evidence reuse across remedy legs, limit overflow, stale status, wrong tenant, wrong consequence owner, and unauthenticated reconciliation. Durable compare-and-swap state is required when multiple workers can claim a remedy. Store ambiguity fails closed.

IANA ConsiderationsThis document requests no IANA action.

ReferencesNormative References Informative References EMILIA Protocol, Inc. EMILIA Protocol, Inc. EMILIA Protocol, Inc.

Implementation StatusAn Apache-2.0 TypeScript reference kernel is published in the EMILIA Protocol repository. It includes durable remedy cases, bounded units, distinct original and remedy CAIDs and action digests, claim fencing, multi-leg case sets, authenticated owner results, indeterminate reconciliation, tests, and a TLA+ lifecycle model. It is same-team implementation evidence, not an independent implementation, legal remedy system, or operated deployment.