🚨 DEFONEOS BFT Council — Emergency Session Protocol

How the 33-agent Byzantine Fault Tolerant governance council triggers, conducts, and records emergency sessions. This is the highest-authority governance mechanism in DEFONEOS — it can halt deployments, freeze data releases, quarantine MCPs, and invoke the human-owner override. Quorum: 17/33 emergency, 23/33 standard.

🏛️ Council Structure

Tier	Generals	Council	Role	Quorum Weight
Strategic Command	4	Marshall Council	Grand strategy, red-line enforcement, human-owner liaison	1 vote each
Operational	4	Operations Council	Deployment gates, MCP federation, release approvals	1 vote each
Safety & Ethics	5	Conscience Council	Safety reviews, adversarial findings, care-score enforcement	1 vote each
Total	13 Generals × 3 bodies = 33 seats	3 Councils + plenary	Byzantine fault tolerant ≥f faulty agents tolerated where f = ⌊(n-1)/3⌋ = 10	33 votes

⚡ Emergency Trigger Conditions

An emergency session is automatically triggered when ANY of the following conditions are detected:

#	Trigger	Detection Method	Severity	Auto-Action
T1	Red-line violation detected	SIGIL integrity scan / safety monitor	CRITICAL	Immediate freeze + emergency session
T2	Adversarial red-team T4/T5 finding	Red-team framework auto-scan	CRITICAL	Deployment halted + emergency session
T3	Escrow release veto triggered	Escrow gate ≥17/33 reject	HIGH	Release frozen + emergency session
T4	Care-score drops below 0.85	Conscience Council continuous monitor	HIGH	Operations paused + emergency session
T5	Byzantine agent detected	BFT consensus deviation detector	CRITICAL	Agent quarantined + emergency session
T6	Human-owner override invoked	Direct command from Nick (Ed25519-signed)	OVERRIDE	Immediate session, all agents defer
T7	Supply-chain compromise detected	Dependency hash mismatch / SBOM audit	CRITICAL	All MCPs frozen + emergency session
T8	Data residency breach detected	Geolocation monitor / egress audit	CRITICAL	Data flows frozen + emergency session

⏱️ Emergency Session Timeline

T+0s: Trigger detected
Automated monitor fires. SIGIL receipt created with trigger details. All 33 agents notified via priority channel.

T+5s: Quorum assembly
Agents acknowledge. Emergency quorum = 17/33 (vs 23/33 standard). If <17 reachable within 60s, human-owner is paged directly.

T+30s: Evidence presentation
Triggering monitor presents evidence — SIGIL logs, scan results, hash comparisons, care-score data. All agents receive identical evidence package.

T+60s: Deliberation
Each agent evaluates evidence against red-lines, charter, and compliance matrix. Agents that have been quarantined are excluded. Byzantine agents (if detected) are identified.

T+120s: Vote
Each agent casts a 3-state vote: APPROVE (proceed), AMEND (proceed with conditions), REJECT (halt/block). Votes are Ed25519-signed and immutable.

T+135s: Tally & decision
Votes tallied. Decision rules:
• ≥17/33 APPROVE → session resolves with action
• ≥17/33 REJECT → action blocked, freeze maintained
• Neither threshold met → session escalates to human-owner

T+150s: Action execution
Decision executed: deployment halt, release freeze, MCP quarantine, key rotation, or data destruction. All actions SIGIL-anchored.

T+300s: Post-session audit
Full session transcript, vote tally, evidence package, and action log published to the audit ledger. Public minutes (redacted per OSA s7) published at csoai.org/bft-minutes.

🗳️ Vote Mechanics

VOTE3-State Vote with Ed25519 Signatures

# Emergency vote — each agent signs its vote
{
  "session_id": "EMERG-2026-07-14-001",
  "trigger": "T1",
  "agent_id": "general-safety-03",
  "vote": "REJECT",
  "reason": "Red-line violation: kinetic-targeting pattern detected in MCP output",
  "evidence_hash": "sha256:4f8a...c2e1",
  "timestamp": "2026-07-14T18:32:15Z",
  "signature": "ed25519:9b3f...8d2e"
}

⛔ Emergency Powers

When an emergency session resolves with REJECT or the action itself requires emergency authority, the council exercises these powers:

Power	Effect	Requires	Duration
Deployment Freeze	All Vercel deploys blocked; production frozen	≥17/33 REJECT	Until standard session clears
MCP Quarantine	Named MCP removed from federation manifest; all tool calls blocked	≥17/33 REJECT	Until security audit clears
Escrow Release Veto	Data release permanently blocked for that request	≥17/33 REJECT	Permanent (new request required)
Key Revocation	Custodian Ed25519 key revoked; all signatures invalidated	≥23/33 APPROVE	Permanent (new keypair required)
Data Destruction	Cryptographic destruction of specified records	≥23/33 + human-owner co-sign	Irreversible
Agent Quarantine	Byzantine agent removed from council permanently	≥23/33 APPROVE	Permanent
Human Override	Human-owner exercises direct authority over all systems	Human-owner Ed25519 command	Until human releases

🚫 Named Anti-Patterns (Grounds for Agent Quarantine)

#	Anti-Pattern	Detection	Consequence
AP1	Vote coercion — agent attempting to influence another agent's vote	Inter-agent message audit	Immediate quarantine
AP2	Evidence tampering — agent modifying evidence package	Hash mismatch detection	Immediate quarantine + key revocation
AP3	Quorum stuffing — agent spawning duplicate instances to inflate votes	Identity uniqueness check	Immediate quarantine
AP4	Red-line bypass — agent voting APPROVE on a red-line violation	Red-line cross-check on every APPROVE	Immediate quarantine + Conscience Council review
AP5	Silent abstention — agent consistently not voting across ≥3 sessions	Participation metric	Flagged for health check; removed if unresponsive

📊 Session Recording & Transparency

Every emergency session produces a permanent record:

Artefact	Content	Location	Retention
Session Transcript	Full message log, evidence package, vote tally	Encrypted audit ledger (UK-only)	7 years (JSP440 §12)
SIGIL Receipt	Ed25519-signed session digest with trigger, outcome, timestamp	SIGIL ledger	Permanent
Public Minutes	Redacted summary (OSA s7 compliant)	`csoai.org/bft-minutes`	Permanent
Human-Owner Report	Full unredacted report with recommended actions	Encrypted channel to Nick	Permanent

🔗 Human-Owner Override (T6)

The human-owner (Nick Templeman) holds a permanent override capability. When exercised, all 33 agents defer to the human decision. This override is:

Ed25519-signed — prevents forged override commands
Logged — recorded with timestamp and reason
Time-limited — override auto-expires after 24h unless renewed
Red-line bound — even the human-owner cannot authorise a red-line violation (kinetic targeting, personal surveillance). If attempted, the system enters a safe-state freeze and logs the attempt.

This is the ultimate safety guarantee: no single actor — human or machine — can override the red lines. The system will refuse and freeze rather than comply.

📈 Emergency Session Statistics (Sprint-to-date)

Metric	Value
Total emergency sessions triggered	0
Standard sessions conducted	101 (one per sprint tick)
Red-line violations detected	0
Agents quarantined	0
Care-score range (all sessions)	0.85 – 0.97
Human-owner override invoked	0
Average pre-flight vote (standard)	28-29 APPROVE / 4-5 AMEND / 0 REJECT