Audits an Articles of Agreement contract — the daemon-witnessed agreement every official Port Daddy agent signs covering registration, transcript reporting, tool-use gating, file claims, parley conduct, budget limits, and operator control — against the enforcement-beats-hope bar: a clause counts as safe only when it resolves to a concrete, daemon-observable mechanism with a defined denial shape, never a promise the agent might honor. Use when drafting a new agent's Articles, reviewing a compliance-level (C0-C6) claim, deciding whether a clause is genuinely enforced or merely documented, or auditing whether an agent's claimed identity can be trusted. NOT for securing the inbound event-to-spawn path (fleet-event-spawn-trust), designing the relay's transport PKI and signing keys (pd-relay-zero-trust), or tracking an agent's identity and reputation across its whole lifetime after it signs (agent-identity-continuity-reputation).
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Audits an Articles of Agreement contract — the daemon-witnessed agreement every official Port Daddy agent signs covering registration, transcript reporting, tool-use gating, file claims, parley conduct, budget limits, and operator control — against the enforcement-beats-hope bar: a clause counts as safe only when it resolves to a concrete, daemon-observable mechanism with a defined denial shape, never a promise the agent might honor. Use when drafting a new agent's Articles, reviewing a compliance-level (C0-C6) claim, deciding whether a clause is genuinely enforced or merely documented, or auditing whether an agent's claimed identity can be trusted. NOT for securing the inbound event-to-spawn path (fleet-event-spawn-trust), designing the relay's transport PKI and signing keys (pd-relay-zero-trust), or tracking an agent's identity and reputation across its whole lifetime after it signs (agent-identity-continuity-reputation).
license
Apache-2.0
allowed-tools
Read,Write,Edit,Bash,Grep,Glob
metadata
{"category":"Agent & Orchestration","tags":["articles-of-agreement","enforcement-beats-hope","daemon-observable","capability-lease","agent-contract"],"provenance":{"kind":"first-party","owners":["port-daddy"]},"pairs-with":[{"skill":"human-gate-designer","reason":"When a clause's mechanism is a human approval step, this skill designs the gate UX and approve/reject/modify routing; this auditor only checks a mechanism and denial shape exist."},{"skill":"runtime-verification-for-agents","reason":"This auditor checks a contract is enforceable on paper; this skill compiles the same invariants into runtime monitors that catch drift in live sessions."},{"skill":"agent-identity-continuity-reputation","reason":"This auditor checks identity is daemon-issued and signed at signing time; this skill tracks that same signed identity's behavior and reputation across its whole lifetime."}],"io-contract":{"kind":"deliverable","consumes":["[Truncated]","[Truncated]"],"produces":["[Truncated]","[Truncated]"]}}
Articles of Agreement Auditor
Decide whether an Articles of Agreement contract actually binds an agent, or just documents good intentions.
Use This For
Drafting a new Agent Node's Articles before it registers: naming a concrete mechanism per obligation, not an aspiration.
Reviewing a claimed compliance level (C0 Registered through C6 Resumable) against the clauses that supposedly back it.
Deciding whether a specific clause is genuinely enforced (daemon can observe and, for gates, deny it) or merely written down.
Auditing whether a signing identity is trustworthy: daemon-issued at agent.register, and signed, not self-asserted by the body.
Catching a gate-style mechanism (pre-tool-gate, hook, capability-lease, mcp-gateway) with no defined denial shape before it ships.
Do Not Use This For
Securing the path from an inbound webhook/email/SMS/GitHub comment to an agent spawn — that is fleet-event-spawn-trust; this skill audits the signed contract an already-spawned agent operates under.
Designing the relay's transport PKI, per-publisher signing keys, or Merkle event chains — that is pd-relay-zero-trust; this skill is silent on wire-level trust between daemons.
Tracking a signed identity's behavior, outcomes, or reputation over its whole lifetime — that is agent-identity-continuity-reputation; this skill only checks the contract is sound and the identity was legitimately issued at signing time.
Enforcement Decision Model
flowchart TD
A[Draft identity: daemonIssued + signed] --> B[Enumerate every obligation as a clause]
B --> C[Assign an enforcementMechanism per clause]
C --> D{Gate mechanism?}
D -->|pre-tool-gate/hook/capability-lease/mcp-gateway| E[Define denialShape]
D -->|probe/transcript-event| F[Leave denialShape unset]
D -->|none| G[Honest but unenforced -- must fix before signing]
E --> H[Run scripts/articles_audit.mjs]
F --> H
G --> H
H --> I{pass:true and zero critical findings?}
I -->|No| J[Fix the exact clause/identity field the finding names]
J --> C
I -->|Yes| K[Sign the Articles and register the Agent Node]
Verify identity before evaluating anything else. Confirm identity.daemonIssued and identity.signed are both true. A body that can self-assert its own identity can also self-assert compliance — no clause matters until the signing identity itself is trustworthy.
Enumerate every obligation as its own clause. Registration, transcript reporting, tool-use gating, file/symbol claims, parley conduct, budget/lease limits, and operator control each get a named clause — see .
templates/output-template.md
Assign a real enforcementMechanism per clause. Pick from pre-tool-gate, hook, capability-lease, mcp-gateway, probe, transcript-event, or the honest none — see references/enforcement-mechanism-taxonomy.md for which mechanism actually fits which obligation.
Require daemonObservable: true for every clause that claims a mechanism. A named mechanism the daemon cannot independently confirm is functionally the same as none.
Define denialShape for every gate-style clause. State the concrete artifact a violation produces (error code, refused call, revoked lease); never attach a denialShape to a passive probe/transcript-event clause, which has nothing to deny.
Run scripts/articles_audit.mjs against the spec and fix every critical finding at the exact clause or identity field it names, not by weakening the check.
Sign and register only on pass:true. A contract that fails closed is a blocker, the same as a red required CI check — not an FYI to route around.
Output Contract
The scorer reads a JSON object matching schemas/articles.schema.json:
identity: { daemonIssued: boolean, signed: boolean } — both must be true.
clauses[]: { name, obligation, enforcementMechanism, daemonObservable, denialShape? } — at least one clause; every clause's enforcementMechanism must not be "none" and daemonObservable must be true; every gate-style clause needs a non-empty denialShape.
Use scripts/articles_audit.mjs to audit an Articles spec JSON and return { pass, score, findings, recommendations }.
Anti-Patterns
The Hopeful Clause
Novice: Writes an obligation in plain English ("the agent will respect its budget") and calls it done, or picks a mechanism the daemon has no way to actually observe.
Expert: Every clause resolves to a concrete, daemon-observable mechanism — or is honestly marked enforcementMechanism: "none" so the gap is visible, never silently assumed safe.
Detection: articles_audit.mjs fires clause-not-enforced (critical) when a clause's enforcementMechanism is "none" or daemonObservable is false.
Self-Attested Identity
Novice: Lets the agent register with a self-chosen id, or treats an unsigned Articles document as close enough.
Expert: The daemon mints the Agent Node id at agent.register against a nonce it issued first, and signs the Articles before any clause is trusted — a body can request capabilities, it cannot declare itself compliant.
Detection: articles_audit.mjs fires identity-not-daemon-issued (critical) when identity.daemonIssued is not true, and identity-unsigned (critical) when identity.signed is not true.
The Gate With No Denial Receipt
Novice: Names a gate mechanism (pre-tool-gate, hook, capability-lease, mcp-gateway) and stops there, with nothing describing what actually happens on a violation.
Expert: Every gate defines a denialShape — the literal artifact a violation produces (error code, refused call, revoked lease) — so the gate is provably built, not just named.
Detection: articles_audit.mjs fires enforced-clause-no-denial-shape (critical) when a gate-style clause has no non-empty denialShape.
References
File
Load When
references/enforcement-mechanism-taxonomy.md
Need to pick a real enforcementMechanism for a clause, or decide whether it needs a denialShape.
references/compliance-levels-and-identity.md
Need to ground a clause in the C0-C6 compliance ladder, or decide whether an identity claim can be trusted.
examples/expected-output.md
Need to see a hopeful/self-attested contract audited, then the same contract fixed and passing.
examples/sample-input.json
Need a complete, passing Articles spec to copy and adapt.
templates/output-template.md
Need a reusable Articles draft template (identity + clauses) to fill in before signing.
schemas/articles.schema.json
Need to validate an Articles spec JSON payload's structure before auditing it.
scripts/articles_audit.mjs
Need deterministic scoring of an Articles contract's enforceability.
agents/openai.yaml
Need a subagent descriptor for delegated Articles drafting/audit.
Skill Bundle Index
Every file in this skill, and when to open it. Auto-generated; run scripts/index_references.py --fix.
root
CHANGELOG.md — Articles of Agreement Auditor — Changelog — - Initial skill creation - Identity-then-clause enforcement decision model defined - Reference files and deterministic articles_audit script
README.md — Articles of Agreement Auditor — Audit an Articles of Agreement contract — the daemon-witnessed agreement every official Port Daddy agent signs — against the enforcement-bea
examples/expected-output.md — Example Output: Articles of Agreement Auditor — Scenario: a new Voyager is drafted with a self-issued identity, an unsigned Articles document, a "be nice" clause with no mechanism at all,
references/compliance-levels-and-identity.md — Compliance Levels And Identity — Use this when you need to ground a clause's mechanism in the daemon's actual compliance ladder, or decide whether an identity claim can be t
references/enforcement-mechanism-taxonomy.md — Enforcement Mechanism Taxonomy — Use this when you need to pick a real enforcementMechanism for a clause, or decide whether it needs a denialShape.
