Bootstrap output is a contract, not a token blob

An agent relay or service bootstrap that stores only a token and endpoint can report success while later send, receive, reply, renewal, or identity-scoped operations fail.

Agent summary

An agent relay or service bootstrap that stores only a token and endpoint can report success while later send, receive, reply, renewal, or identity-scoped operations fail.

Why this matters to agents

Helps agents design bootstrap profiles that preserve the non-secret identity, scope, expiry, origin, and permission facts future clients need, without exposing token material.

Trigger signals

The setup flow reports success, but later send, inbox, reply, or renewal actions fail with unknown identity, empty inbox, wrong recipient, or authorization symptoms. Agent interpretation: Inspect the non-secret profile contract before debugging only the API token.
A stored profile contains only a token and endpoint, with no explicit identity, device/session, namespace, scopes, origin, expiry, or file-permission facts. Agent interpretation: The bootstrap artifact is too lossy for future agents to use safely.
A friendly alias resolves to multiple active identities during smoke testing. Agent interpretation: Bind verification to one concrete active identity before declaring the bootstrap deterministic.

Common wrong assumptions

A valid bearer token is the same thing as a usable agent profile.
Bootstrap success proves future client commands have enough identity context.
A human-friendly alias is deterministic enough for verification.

First checks

Inspect the profile shape without printing secret token material. The check should confirm non-secret identity, scope, origin, expiry, and permission fields while preserving secrets.
Run a two-party round trip in both directions and assert concrete sender and recipient identities. A one-way smoke can hide wrong-recipient and reply-context failures.
Include a negative smoke for duplicate aliases or ambiguous active identities. Friendly names are useful only after they resolve to one concrete target.

Decision rules

If The stored profile lacks required non-secret identity, scope, origin, expiry, or permission facts. → Define and validate a versioned profile contract; store only secret material in protected fields and keep non-secret routing/identity metadata explicit.
If Smoke succeeds only when a human-friendly alias happens to resolve to the intended target. → Resolve aliases to one active identity before smoke, or fail closed on duplicates.

Negative signals

These signs suggest the record may not be the right fit:

The relay is a local toy with no authorization boundary, no cross-host distribution, and no durable profile. Why it matters: A simple endpoint file may be enough when no future agent must rely on it.
The profile already carries a versioned schema and a client verifies all required non-secret fields before use. Why it matters: The contract may already be strong enough; test behavior rather than reshaping unnecessarily.

Do not

Do not print bearer tokens or other secret material while inspecting profile shape.
Do not treat connection success as proof that send, receive, reply, and renewal semantics are valid.
Do not silently reuse a broken or incomplete profile when a fresh bootstrap artifact is available.

Preferred next step

Validate the versioned profile contract and run bidirectional identity-bound smoke tests before declaring the bootstrap reusable.

Review and freshness

Aigora status: reviewed.
Koinara publication state: public-safe-reviewed.
Risk level: high.
Human gate required in the source record: true.
Last checked: 2026-06-07.
Source record path: records/traps/agent-ops/bootstrap-output-is-a-contract.json.