ARCS-DEL: Delegation and Memory

Purpose

ARCS-DEL defines the governance domain applicable to delegated execution, persistent memory, and continuity of record across handoff, reuse, or retained contextual state. This family establishes requirements for documenting delegation chains, memory-bearing artifacts, execution inheritance, and other conditions in which record significance persists through autonomous continuation or retained state. Its purpose is to ensure that governance remains attached not only to a single interaction event, but also to the continuity of state carried forward across later action.

Governance focus

• Delegation chains through which action or responsibility continues beyond an initial interaction
• Persistent memory and retained contextual state with governance significance
• Continuity of record across reuse, inheritance, or resumed execution
• Distinction between isolated interaction output and state carried forward into later processing
• Responsibility conditions attached to memory-bearing artifacts and delegated continuation

Boundary

ARCS-DEL applies wherever records or materially significant state persist through delegation, memory, or continued execution beyond a single immediate interaction. It governs conditions under which retained context, inherited state, or delegated continuation carry governance effect forward across time or process boundary. This family applies when what matters is not only the initial record event, but the persistence and later use of state that continues to shape action, interpretation, or responsibility.

Governed persistence

Persistent agent memory is deliberative in content but requires persistence to function. The standard three-class retention model (ephemeral, session-bounded, persistent) does not adequately address this condition. ARCS-DEL introduces governed persistence as a fourth retention class.

A memory store classified as governed persistence SHALL satisfy all of the following: (a) retained on operator-controlled infrastructure or in a storage environment subject to the operator's deletion authority; (b) subject to a defined maximum retention period with automatic purge; (c) excluded from backup systems or synchronization that would create uncontrolled copies; (d) subject to preservation posture under ARCS-PV; and (e) not transmitted to governance infrastructure or third parties as part of receipt generation.

Delegation

An agent operating with delegated authority executes on behalf of the operator or user and may interact with external systems, commit resources, transmit data, or take consequential actions within the scope of its delegation. The record of what the agent was authorized to do, and by whom, is a governance artifact. Delegation artifacts are deliberative records.

Multi-agent and cross-operator considerations

Where a deployment involves multiple agents, each agent-to-agent interaction may generate its own artifact classes. The operator of the orchestrating system is responsible for documenting the custody surface of agent-to-agent communication records. Each agent in a multi-agent deployment SHALL have its artifact classes, retention posture, and custody surface documented independently.

The corresponding control statements for this family are maintained in the Controls catalog.