From: Christian Nennemann <ietf@nennemann.de>
To: wimse@ietf.org
Subject: Individual Draft: Execution Context Token for Agentic Workflows (draft-nennemann-wimse-ect-02)

Hello WIMSE,

I have submitted an individual draft, "Execution Context Tokens for
Distributed Agentic Workflows" (draft-nennemann-wimse-ect-02), for the
working group's consideration. The draft is available on datatracker at:
https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nennemann-wimse-ect/

The problem I am trying to address is execution context propagation
across workloads in distributed agentic workflows. The re-chartered
WIMSE scope explicitly calls out "execution context propagation for
agentic workflows", and while the adopted drafts (arch, s2s-protocol,
identifier, wpt) establish workload identity and call context, none of
them currently carry a verifiable record of what a workload actually
executed on behalf of an upstream caller. The arch document frames
execution context as in-scope for WIMSE; ECT is one proposed mechanism
to fill that gap at the workload layer.

ECT is a JWT that records a single task execution. Tasks are linked
into a DAG via a "pred" claim listing parent task identifiers, which
allows a verifier to reconstruct the causal history across workload
boundaries. The draft defines three assurance levels (self-attested,
runtime-attested, hardware-attested), an "Execution-Context" HTTP
header for propagation, and binding to WIMSE workload identities so
that each task record is anchored to the workload that produced it.
ECT normatively references a sibling individual submission,
draft-nennemann-act-01 (Agent Context Token), which carries the
upstream agent/user call context that ECT executions are attributed to.

I am aware of draft-oauth-transaction-tokens-for-agents and have
attached a diff document describing how ECT differs and where the two
are complementary. In short, Txn-Tokens-for-Agents operates at the
OAuth authorization layer (short-lived tokens for cross-service
transactions), whereas ECT operates at the WIMSE workload layer
(verifiable execution records linked by DAG). I would appreciate WG
feedback on whether that framing is accurate and whether the layering
is useful.

I would welcome review and comments on the list, and I would like to
request a 10-minute slot at the WIMSE session at IETF 123 (July 2026)
to present the draft and gather feedback. I am happy to iterate on the
document based on list input before then.

Thank you,

Christian Nennemann
Independent Researcher
ietf@nennemann.de