diff --git a/data/research.json b/data/research.json
index f547cbb..755f8fa 100644
--- a/data/research.json
+++ b/data/research.json
@@ -679,24 +679,40 @@
"contribution": "An evaluator protocol that separates admission, drain, persistence, recovery and evidence at a tool gateway, with counterexamples to reading a signed refusal as proof of continuing shutdown.",
"plain": "Pressing a kill switch, getting a signed refusal and seeing nothing further happen are three different things. Testing the cMCP gateway, the report finds that it refuses new work and stays blocked after a restart, but also that a call already admitted can finish and a tool reached directly, around the gateway, can still act. It proposes a way to evaluate shutdown that checks each of these separately, including a fresh check of whether the block holds now.",
"limits": [
- "Software-only and author operated, on one Windows host with software keys over loopback HTTP. No language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.",
+ "Software-only, on Windows hosts with software keys over loopback HTTP. The author and one external evaluator each controlled gateway and observer together; no language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.",
"A direct path to the tool produced an effect while the gateway was stopped, which the gateway's records cannot show, and a call admitted before the trip still completed.",
"A historical refusal still verifies after recovery: the receipt verifier accepts no challenge or maximum age, so present shutdown state needs a new observation."
],
- "changes": "First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.",
"origin": "Revises a discussion draft dated September 19, 2026.",
- "evidence_note": "The author repeated every run on September 27 and October 1, 2026 in fresh environments at the pinned revisions. An independent evaluation is under way and will be reported in version 2.",
"spec": "https://cmcp.agentrust-io.com/",
"code": "https://github.com/agentrust-io/cmcp",
"patent_pending": true,
- "date": "2026-10-01",
- "abstract": "A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.",
- "pages": 9,
- "sha256": {
- "paper.pdf": "d6703450646fd260a597165c56ee73d1f5b0531edcb366c4da51995b84a5dcf5",
- "source.zip": "5204e01d837d74b50a44473de8bcb85a7da16efac6e884cbd74d63033afa9bb0"
- },
- "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.23091310"
+ "abstract": "A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. An external evaluator repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation and obtained the same outcome for every assertion. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.",
+ "versions": [
+ {
+ "version": 1,
+ "date": "2026-10-01",
+ "pages": 9,
+ "changes": "First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.",
+ "evidence_note": "The author repeated every run on September 27 and October 1, 2026 in fresh environments at the pinned revisions. An independent evaluation is under way and will be reported in version 2.",
+ "sha256": {
+ "paper.pdf": "d6703450646fd260a597165c56ee73d1f5b0531edcb366c4da51995b84a5dcf5",
+ "source.zip": "5204e01d837d74b50a44473de8bcb85a7da16efac6e884cbd74d63033afa9bb0"
+ },
+ "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.23091310"
+ },
+ {
+ "version": 2,
+ "date": "2026-10-11",
+ "pages": 11,
+ "changes": "Adds Section 9: an external evaluator, Zoheb Shaik, repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation on October 11, 2026 with the same outcome for every assertion. Rechecks later source against current main. No version 1 result changes.",
+ "evidence_note": "One external evaluator repeated every run on his own workstation on October 11, 2026, with gateway and observer under his one administrator. One individual's evaluation, not a certification or ongoing verification.",
+ "sha256": {
+ "paper.pdf": "9ce0166a61e6225eabab67c42dd2e8a232c6cb499a566914e87df69fb9fb3023",
+ "source.zip": "d15611000995a4b3562dc2033a5a2454e5bc1f3a53d2d1930d53c9a52dca2594"
+ }
+ }
+ ]
}
]
}
diff --git a/research/index.html b/research/index.html
index 2d43588..d4d6593 100644
--- a/research/index.html
+++ b/research/index.html
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@
AgenTrust Research
Identity, enforcement, and evidence for AI agents.
Reports on how to check what an AI agent is, what it is allowed to do, and what it actually did. Each comes with a PDF, its source code and recorded test results, and says plainly what it does not prove. Read the work, check the evidence yourself, and cite a specific version.
When an AI agent runs, the people who rely on it often want proof of what it ran: which model, which policy, which tools it called. TRACE proposes one portable, signed record of those facts that anyone can check against their own rules. The report measures how quickly such records are signed and checked and how large they are, and states plainly that a signature alone does not prove the record came from trusted hardware or that its claims are true.
AI agents act through tools, and MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is a common way they call them. cMCP puts a checkpoint in front of those tool calls: it checks each call against a written policy before it runs and keeps a signed record of the decision. The report tests this in software with made-up healthcare traces; it did not test real confidential hardware or show that every call was captured.
An AI agent is defined by many parts: its instructions, model, policy, tools, memory and the people who approved it. Agent Manifest proposes a signed list of those parts, so that a later change to any of them can be spotted by someone holding the parts and the right keys. The report measures signing speed and tampering tests, notes that the tested version accepted forged human approvals (later versions check them), and states that a signed list alone does not prove the agent actually ran with those parts.
When a company runs its private AI model on computers someone else controls, it needs a way to keep control of the model. WCM is an open protocol that releases the model's key only to approved, checked software, requires that permission to be renewed, and records evidence of deletion and of any models derived from it. The tested code passed all 91 shared conformance tests; the report also describes two flaws in that version (fixed later) and a missing hardware setting on the tested cloud machine without which the strongest protection does not hold.
When one AI agent hands a task to another, the standard A2A protocol does not limit the authority passed along, check what software the other agent runs, or leave a record of who asked whom. cA2A adds those protections on top of A2A: permissions that can only shrink at each handoff, a check of the other agent's hardware evidence before sending, an encrypted task and a signed record of each step. Software tests confirm these behaviors, but trust between hardware run by two independent organizations has not yet been shown.
Monitoring tools for AI agents record what happened, but they drop data and can capture sensitive content, so they make poor audit evidence. This report proposes a shared format for six kinds of governance events, such as policy decisions and human approvals, that keeps prompts, outputs and secrets out and keeps everyday monitoring separate from audit evidence. The tested release passed its tests, but whether the evidence is complete is something the producer states rather than something the system measures, and a defect found later let an edited snapshot be signed.
Keeping data private inside one protected AI system is not enough if an agent then passes it to a tool or to another agent. This paper sets out the conditions each handoff must meet for the data to stay private, and says the sender must hold the data back when a recipient cannot meet them. Its software experiments show leaks earlier in a workflow even when the final answer arrives correctly, and it states that today's AgenTrust components do not yet deliver the full guarantee.
Monitoring systems can lose events, so their records cannot prove that every governance event was kept. This report proposes recording each event as evidence at the source first, before it is sent to any monitoring system, so a failed export never means lost evidence. Tests confirm that separation and also show its limits: nothing guarantees an event is stored exactly once, and an empty record can still be declared complete.
Before a model's decryption key is released, the key service checks what software is running but not how its memory behaves. This report adds an extra check: the machine writes and reads back a pattern over a stated memory range, based on a fresh challenge, signs the result, and gets the key only if that result is fresh, clean and signed by the expected key. It passed its software tests, but it covers only the stated range at that moment and does not stop an attacker with physical access to the machine.
A person often approves an AI agent after its signed description, its manifest, has already been issued. This report shows how to sign the rule that a human must approve so nobody can weaken it, while still letting each approver add their own signed approval later. Tests confirm the design and found a gap in the tested version that a later change closed, and the report lists the further checks on identity and action a system still needs before acting on an approval.
An answer an AI agent writes from confidential data still carries that data's restrictions. This report describes a release step in which the data's owner approves the exact answer for a named recipient and purpose, and the system delivers it at most once, reporting the outcome as unknown instead of resending when delivery is uncertain. Concurrency and crash tests in cMCP never produced a second delivery, though they ran on one machine and the approval ledger must itself be protected from being rolled back.
A model owner can require checks before a key service releases the model's key, but that does not help if the operator can quietly change the key service itself. This report has the owner check the key service first, confirming its software, its settings and a fresh receiving key, before handing over the model key. Software tests show that changed or outdated setups are refused, but no real hardware or model key was used, and the owner's own records must be protected against rollback.
When an operator presses an AI agent's kill switch, what is actually stopped, and does it stay stopped after a restart? Testing the cMCP tool gateway, the report finds that new tool calls are refused with signed refusals anyone can check, and that the block survives restarts. It also finds that work already under way can still finish, in one case about 1.2 seconds after the kill switch had returned.
When one agent sends a task to another, checking the other agent beforehand does not prove who wrote the answer that comes back, because a relay in between could swap or replay it. This report tests a cA2A mode that lets the caller accept exactly one genuine answer to its exact request, and report the outcome as unknown instead of retrying when something fails. Tests show it blocks swapped, replayed and doubled answers, but the check works only for the live caller and does not prove authorship to anyone else later.
A confidential AI model host has to start before it can prove it is trustworthy, so the question is when users should be allowed to reach it. This report sends traffic to the host only after a signed admission receipt for that exact session has been checked, removes the route when the session ends, and keeps a durable record so a revoked session can never be reopened. Software tests confirm the design without a real cluster or confidential GPU, and show that the record itself must be protected against being rolled back.
Pressing a kill switch, getting a signed refusal and seeing nothing further happen are three different things. Testing the cMCP gateway, the report finds that it refuses new work and stays blocked after a restart, but also that a call already admitted can finish and a tool reached directly, around the gateway, can still act. It proposes a way to evaluate shutdown that checks each of these separately, including a fresh check of whether the block holds now.
When an AI agent runs, the people who rely on it often want proof of what it ran: which model, which policy, which tools it called. TRACE proposes one portable, signed record of those facts that anyone can check against their own rules. The report measures how quickly such records are signed and checked and how large they are, and states plainly that a signature alone does not prove the record came from trusted hardware or that its claims are true.
AI agents act through tools, and MCP (the Model Context Protocol) is a common way they call them. cMCP puts a checkpoint in front of those tool calls: it checks each call against a written policy before it runs and keeps a signed record of the decision. The report tests this in software with made-up healthcare traces; it did not test real confidential hardware or show that every call was captured.
An AI agent is defined by many parts: its instructions, model, policy, tools, memory and the people who approved it. Agent Manifest proposes a signed list of those parts, so that a later change to any of them can be spotted by someone holding the parts and the right keys. The report measures signing speed and tampering tests, notes that the tested version accepted forged human approvals (later versions check them), and states that a signed list alone does not prove the agent actually ran with those parts.
When a company runs its private AI model on computers someone else controls, it needs a way to keep control of the model. WCM is an open protocol that releases the model's key only to approved, checked software, requires that permission to be renewed, and records evidence of deletion and of any models derived from it. The tested code passed all 91 shared conformance tests; the report also describes two flaws in that version (fixed later) and a missing hardware setting on the tested cloud machine without which the strongest protection does not hold.
When one AI agent hands a task to another, the standard A2A protocol does not limit the authority passed along, check what software the other agent runs, or leave a record of who asked whom. cA2A adds those protections on top of A2A: permissions that can only shrink at each handoff, a check of the other agent's hardware evidence before sending, an encrypted task and a signed record of each step. Software tests confirm these behaviors, but trust between hardware run by two independent organizations has not yet been shown.
Monitoring tools for AI agents record what happened, but they drop data and can capture sensitive content, so they make poor audit evidence. This report proposes a shared format for six kinds of governance events, such as policy decisions and human approvals, that keeps prompts, outputs and secrets out and keeps everyday monitoring separate from audit evidence. The tested release passed its tests, but whether the evidence is complete is something the producer states rather than something the system measures, and a defect found later let an edited snapshot be signed.
Keeping data private inside one protected AI system is not enough if an agent then passes it to a tool or to another agent. This paper sets out the conditions each handoff must meet for the data to stay private, and says the sender must hold the data back when a recipient cannot meet them. Its software experiments show leaks earlier in a workflow even when the final answer arrives correctly, and it states that today's AgenTrust components do not yet deliver the full guarantee.
Monitoring systems can lose events, so their records cannot prove that every governance event was kept. This report proposes recording each event as evidence at the source first, before it is sent to any monitoring system, so a failed export never means lost evidence. Tests confirm that separation and also show its limits: nothing guarantees an event is stored exactly once, and an empty record can still be declared complete.
Before a model's decryption key is released, the key service checks what software is running but not how its memory behaves. This report adds an extra check: the machine writes and reads back a pattern over a stated memory range, based on a fresh challenge, signs the result, and gets the key only if that result is fresh, clean and signed by the expected key. It passed its software tests, but it covers only the stated range at that moment and does not stop an attacker with physical access to the machine.
A person often approves an AI agent after its signed description, its manifest, has already been issued. This report shows how to sign the rule that a human must approve so nobody can weaken it, while still letting each approver add their own signed approval later. Tests confirm the design and found a gap in the tested version that a later change closed, and the report lists the further checks on identity and action a system still needs before acting on an approval.
An answer an AI agent writes from confidential data still carries that data's restrictions. This report describes a release step in which the data's owner approves the exact answer for a named recipient and purpose, and the system delivers it at most once, reporting the outcome as unknown instead of resending when delivery is uncertain. Concurrency and crash tests in cMCP never produced a second delivery, though they ran on one machine and the approval ledger must itself be protected from being rolled back.
A model owner can require checks before a key service releases the model's key, but that does not help if the operator can quietly change the key service itself. This report has the owner check the key service first, confirming its software, its settings and a fresh receiving key, before handing over the model key. Software tests show that changed or outdated setups are refused, but no real hardware or model key was used, and the owner's own records must be protected against rollback.
When an operator presses an AI agent's kill switch, what is actually stopped, and does it stay stopped after a restart? Testing the cMCP tool gateway, the report finds that new tool calls are refused with signed refusals anyone can check, and that the block survives restarts. It also finds that work already under way can still finish, in one case about 1.2 seconds after the kill switch had returned.
When one agent sends a task to another, checking the other agent beforehand does not prove who wrote the answer that comes back, because a relay in between could swap or replay it. This report tests a cA2A mode that lets the caller accept exactly one genuine answer to its exact request, and report the outcome as unknown instead of retrying when something fails. Tests show it blocks swapped, replayed and doubled answers, but the check works only for the live caller and does not prove authorship to anyone else later.
A confidential AI model host has to start before it can prove it is trustworthy, so the question is when users should be allowed to reach it. This report sends traffic to the host only after a signed admission receipt for that exact session has been checked, removes the route when the session ends, and keeps a durable record so a revoked session can never be reopened. Software tests confirm the design without a real cluster or confidential GPU, and show that the record itself must be protected against being rolled back.
Pressing a kill switch, getting a signed refusal and seeing nothing further happen are three different things. Testing the cMCP gateway, the report finds that it refuses new work and stays blocked after a restart, but also that a call already admitted can finish and a tool reached directly, around the gateway, can still act. It proposes a way to evaluate shutdown that checks each of these separately, including a fresh check of whether the block holds now.
Each report records a design and its tests as they stood on a given date. A digital signature, a hardware check (attestation) and a claim that every action was recorded each prove different things. Each paper page says which evidence was examined and what is still unproven.
To build on this work, follow the current project specifications linked from each report. Paper text is available under CC BY 4.0; code keeps its project license.
What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway
Imran Siddique
OPAQUE Systems
-
October 1, 2026Not peer reviewedPatent Pending
+
October 11, 2026Not peer reviewedPatent Pending
In plain English
Pressing a kill switch, getting a signed refusal and seeing nothing further happen are three different things. Testing the cMCP gateway, the report finds that it refuses new work and stays blocked after a restart, but also that a call already admitted can finish and a tool reached directly, around the gateway, can still act. It proposes a way to evaluate shutdown that checks each of these separately, including a fresh check of whether the block holds now.
-
Abstract
A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.
-
+
Abstract
A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. An external evaluator repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation and obtained the same outcome for every assertion. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.
+
What this report contributes
An evaluator protocol that separates admission, drain, persistence, recovery and evidence at a tool gateway, with counterexamples to reading a signed refusal as proof of continuing shutdown.
-
Evidence and limits
Software-only and author operated, on one Windows host with software keys over loopback HTTP. No language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.
A direct path to the tool produced an effect while the gateway was stopped, which the gateway's records cannot show, and a call admitted before the trip still completed.
A historical refusal still verifies after recovery: the receipt verifier accepts no challenge or maximum age, so present shutdown state needs a new observation.
-
The source package preserves the recorded inputs and results. The author repeated every run on September 27 and October 1, 2026 in fresh environments at the pinned revisions. An independent evaluation is under way and will be reported in version 2.
+
Evidence and limits
Software-only, on Windows hosts with software keys over loopback HTTP. The author and one external evaluator each controlled gateway and observer together; no language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.
A direct path to the tool produced an effect while the gateway was stopped, which the gateway's records cannot show, and a call admitted before the trip still completed.
A historical refusal still verifies after recovery: the receipt verifier accepts no challenge or maximum age, so present shutdown state needs a new observation.
+
The source package preserves the recorded inputs and results. One external evaluator repeated every run on his own workstation on October 11, 2026, with gateway and observer under his one administrator. One individual's evaluation, not a certification or ongoing verification.
Imran Siddique. What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway. AgenTrust technical report, version 1, 2026.
Imran Siddique. What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway. AgenTrust technical report, version 2, 2026.
@techreport{agentrust2026killswitch,
title = {What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway},
author = {Imran Siddique},
institution = {AgenTrust},
year = {2026},
type = {Technical report},
- note = {Version 1; not peer reviewed},
- doi = {10.5281/zenodo.23091310},
- url = {https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v1/}
+ note = {Version 2; not peer reviewed},
+ url = {https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v2/}
}
-
Version history
Version 1, October 1, 2026: First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.
+
Version history
Version 2, October 11, 2026: Adds Section 9: an external evaluator, Zoheb Shaik, repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation on October 11, 2026 with the same outcome for every assertion. Rechecks later source against current main. No version 1 result changes.
+
Version 1, October 1, 2026: First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.
Revises a discussion draft dated September 19, 2026.
-
File checksums. Published version files are retained; substantive revisions receive a new version.
+
File checksums. Published version files are retained; substantive revisions receive a new version.
Questions and corrections
Open an issue in the project repository and identify the report version and section.
What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an age
Imran Siddique
OPAQUE Systems
October 1, 2026Not peer reviewedPatent Pending
-
Abstract
A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.
+
Abstract
A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. An external evaluator repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation and obtained the same outcome for every assertion. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.
What this report contributes
An evaluator protocol that separates admission, drain, persistence, recovery and evidence at a tool gateway, with counterexamples to reading a signed refusal as proof of continuing shutdown.
-
Evidence and limits
Software-only and author operated, on one Windows host with software keys over loopback HTTP. No language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.
A direct path to the tool produced an effect while the gateway was stopped, which the gateway's records cannot show, and a call admitted before the trip still completed.
A historical refusal still verifies after recovery: the receipt verifier accepts no challenge or maximum age, so present shutdown state needs a new observation.
+
Evidence and limits
Software-only, on Windows hosts with software keys over loopback HTTP. The author and one external evaluator each controlled gateway and observer together; no language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.
A direct path to the tool produced an effect while the gateway was stopped, which the gateway's records cannot show, and a call admitted before the trip still completed.
A historical refusal still verifies after recovery: the receipt verifier accepts no challenge or maximum age, so present shutdown state needs a new observation.
The source package preserves the recorded inputs and results. The author repeated every run on September 27 and October 1, 2026 in fresh environments at the pinned revisions. An independent evaluation is under way and will be reported in version 2.
Imran Siddique. What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway. AgenTrust technical report, version 1, 2026.
@@ -85,7 +85,8 @@
What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an age
url = {https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v1/}
}
-
Version history
Version 1, October 1, 2026: First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.
+
Version history
Version 2, October 11, 2026: Adds Section 9: an external evaluator, Zoheb Shaik, repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation on October 11, 2026 with the same outcome for every assertion. Rechecks later source against current main. No version 1 result changes.
+
Version 1, October 1, 2026: First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.
Revises a discussion draft dated September 19, 2026.
File checksums. Published version files are retained; substantive revisions receive a new version.
Questions and corrections
Open an issue in the project repository and identify the report version and section.
diff --git a/research/kill-switch/v2/CITATION.cff b/research/kill-switch/v2/CITATION.cff
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b2a9799
--- /dev/null
+++ b/research/kill-switch/v2/CITATION.cff
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+{
+ "cff-version": "1.2.0",
+ "message": "Cite the versioned technical report. It has not been peer reviewed.",
+ "type": "dataset",
+ "title": "What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway",
+ "version": "2",
+ "date-released": "2026-10-11",
+ "authors": [
+ {
+ "given-names": "Imran",
+ "family-names": "Siddique"
+ }
+ ],
+ "url": "https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v2/",
+ "license": "CC-BY-4.0",
+ "preferred-citation": {
+ "type": "report",
+ "title": "What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway",
+ "authors": [
+ {
+ "given-names": "Imran",
+ "family-names": "Siddique"
+ }
+ ],
+ "year": 2026,
+ "url": "https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v2/"
+ }
+}
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+9ce0166a61e6225eabab67c42dd2e8a232c6cb499a566914e87df69fb9fb3023 paper.pdf
+d15611000995a4b3562dc2033a5a2454e5bc1f3a53d2d1930d53c9a52dca2594 source.zip
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+@techreport{agentrust2026killswitch,
+ title = {What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway},
+ author = {Imran Siddique},
+ institution = {AgenTrust},
+ year = {2026},
+ type = {Technical report},
+ note = {Version 2; not peer reviewed},
+ url = {https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v2/}
+}
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+What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway (version 2) | AgenTrust
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What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway
+
Imran Siddique
OPAQUE Systems
+
October 11, 2026Not peer reviewedPatent Pending
+
+
Abstract
A shutdown command, a signed refusal and the absence of subsequent effects are different observations. We examine those distinctions using the merged cMCP gateway kill switch and its accompanying policy-key and delegation revocation mechanisms. A reproducible evaluator drives gateway startup, signed agent identity, Cedar evaluation, loopback HTTP tool calls, durable blocks, process restart, recovery and offline receipt verification. The reference run satisfies 27 named assertions. Two targeted implementation weakenings are detected at their intended assertions. Separately, 81 existing cMCP component tests and 38 cA2A revocation tests pass on pinned source revisions. The observed system refuses new tool work through the stopped gateway and retains its block after restart. An admitted call can nevertheless finish during shutdown, a direct tool path can produce an effect while the gateway is stopped, and a historical refusal still verifies after recovery. These counterexamples establish the limits of treating a signed receipt as evidence of continuing or universal shutdown. An external evaluator repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation and obtained the same outcome for every assertion. We propose an evaluator protocol that separates admission, effects, persistence, recovery and freshness, with an explicit role for independent observation. The exercise uses software keys, one operator and no model or confidential hardware.
+
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What this report contributes
An evaluator protocol that separates admission, drain, persistence, recovery and evidence at a tool gateway, with counterexamples to reading a signed refusal as proof of continuing shutdown.
+
Evidence and limits
Software-only, on Windows hosts with software keys over loopback HTTP. The author and one external evaluator each controlled gateway and observer together; no language model, confidential hardware or independently operated peer was used.
A direct path to the tool produced an effect while the gateway was stopped, which the gateway's records cannot show, and a call admitted before the trip still completed.
A historical refusal still verifies after recovery: the receipt verifier accepts no challenge or maximum age, so present shutdown state needs a new observation.
+
The source package preserves the recorded inputs and results. One external evaluator repeated every run on his own workstation on October 11, 2026, with gateway and observer under his one administrator. One individual's evaluation, not a certification or ongoing verification.
Imran Siddique. What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway. AgenTrust technical report, version 2, 2026.
@techreport{agentrust2026killswitch,
+ title = {What Does an AI Kill Switch Prove? Evidence and limits of shutdown at an agent tool gateway},
+ author = {Imran Siddique},
+ institution = {AgenTrust},
+ year = {2026},
+ type = {Technical report},
+ note = {Version 2; not peer reviewed},
+ url = {https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v2/}
+}
+
+
Version history
Version 2, October 11, 2026: Adds Section 9: an external evaluator, Zoheb Shaik, repeated the reference run, both weakenings and both component suites on his own workstation on October 11, 2026 with the same outcome for every assertion. Rechecks later source against current main. No version 1 result changes.
+
Version 1, October 1, 2026: First public edition. Evaluates cMCP 9db65b5 and cA2A 540a578; results were repeated on September 27 and October 1, 2026 with the same outcomes, and later source was rechecked against main.
+
Revises a discussion draft dated September 19, 2026.
+
File checksums. Published version files are retained; substantive revisions receive a new version.
+
Questions and corrections
Open an issue in the project repository and identify the report version and section.
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+
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diff --git a/sitemap.xml b/sitemap.xml
index cc5b0a0..1693f27 100644
--- a/sitemap.xml
+++ b/sitemap.xml
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
https://agentrust-io.com/research/handoff-response-authentication/v1/https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v1/
+ https://agentrust-io.com/research/kill-switch/v2/https://agentrust-io.com/research/model-key-broker-provisioning/https://agentrust-io.com/research/model-key-broker-provisioning/v1/https://agentrust-io.com/research/receipt-gated-model-serving/