Who could do what — at any moment in time.

Pick a timestamp. Reconstruct the full authority surface that was in force at that exact moment: every principal, every grant, every revocation, every delegated agent, every active policy. This is what regulators eventually ask. This is what H33 answers in one signed snapshot.

How this works

Authority State is reconstructable from a tenant's authority event log. Every grant, every revocation, every delegation gets recorded with a timestamp. Replay the events through any moment in time, and you get an exact snapshot of who could do what. The snapshot is signed by H33 so any third party can verify it.

The API — one URL, one timestamp, one signed snapshot:

Used together with a Decision Receipt, the snapshot lets a regulator confirm that authority was present at the exact moment a decision was made — not approximately, not "around then," but exactly. The snapshot is also embedded directly in every Decision Receipt when the decision required authority-state context (such as a delegated agent acting on behalf of an organization).

Why this matters

Most systems can tell you what authority exists today. Almost none can tell you what authority existed at a specific past moment without rebuilding the database, asking an administrator, or asking the platform vendor to confirm. H33's authority state is reconstructable independently — from the event log alone — and the reconstruction is signed.

That means a 5-year-later audit asking "what authority did this principal have on this exact day?" gets a single signed answer. Not a report. Not a query. An artifact.

Where Authority State sits

Authority State is a supporting surface of Authority Center, whose owned verb is PRESERVE — the durable record of who could do what. This page is its past tense: the authority surface reconstructed as of a chosen moment. It does not govern the decision (that is Agent-008), does not render the verdict (that is Verification), does not record the operations (that is HATS), and does not produce the portable evidence primitive (that is H33-74). It reconstructs and preserves the snapshot those systems can then govern, verify, record, and carry.

Use this when you need to answer “who held what authority, under what policy and delegation, at this exact past moment” — for an audit, a dispute, or checking a past decision against the authority that was actually in force when it happened, reconstructed from the event log as one signed snapshot rather than a report or a database query.

Which surface do I want?

Same authority question, four tenses:

To govern the decision made under this authority, use Agent-008. For the independent verdict on a snapshot, use Verification.

Questions people ask