# Execution Context Tokens for Distributed Agentic Workflows

This repository contains **draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00**, an IETF Internet-Draft proposing Execution Context Tokens (ECTs) as an extension to the [WIMSE](https://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/wimse/about/) (Workload Identity in Multi System Environments) architecture.

## What are ECTs?

ECTs are signed JWT tokens that record **what** agents did, **in what order**, and **under what policy** -- complementing WIMSE's existing answer to **who** an agent is.

They provide:

- **DAG-structured execution proofs** -- task dependencies form a directed acyclic graph with cryptographic ordering guarantees
- **Policy checkpoint recording** -- each decision point records which policy was evaluated and the outcome
- **Immutable audit trails** -- ECTs are appended to a storage-agnostic audit ledger
- **WIMSE integration** -- same signing keys, algorithms, and SPIFFE-based identifiers as WIT/WPT

Target environments include medtech (FDA audit trails), finance (transaction record-keeping), logistics, and other regulated agentic systems.

## Repository contents

| File | Description |
|------|-------------|
| `draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.md` | The Internet-Draft in kramdown-rfc markdown format |
| `master-prompt.md` | Design rationale, iteration plan, and reference material |
| `refimpl/` | **Reference implementation** (Go): ECT create/verify, DAG validation, in-memory ledger, and a two-agent demo. See `refimpl/README.md`. |

## Building the draft

The draft is authored in [kramdown-rfc](https://github.com/cabo/kramdown-rfc) markdown and compiled via the standard IETF toolchain.

### Prerequisites

```bash
# Ruby (kramdown-rfc is a Ruby gem)
# On macOS with Homebrew:
brew install ruby

# kramdown-rfc
gem install kramdown-rfc

# xml2rfc (Python tool for rendering)
pip install xml2rfc
```

### Compile

```bash
# One-step build (markdown -> XML -> text + HTML)
kdrfc draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.md

# Or step by step:
kramdown-rfc2629 draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.md \
  > draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.xml

xml2rfc draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.xml --text
xml2rfc draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.xml --html
```

### Output files

After building, you will have:

- `draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.xml` -- canonical XML (for IETF datatracker submission)
- `draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.txt` -- plain text rendering
- `draft-nennemann-wimse-execution-context-00.html` -- HTML rendering

## Submitting to the IETF

Upload the generated `.xml` file at https://datatracker.ietf.org/submit/

## Author

Christian Nennemann
Independent Researcher
ietf@nennemann.de

## License

This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.