RFC: multi-agent failure attribution and credit assignment

[bug-ops]

Summary

Umbrella RFC consolidating 4 research issues targeting failure attribution and credit assignment across multi-agent execution.

Consolidated Sources

• research(subagent): AER reasoning provenance — structured behavioral analytics beyond execution traces for zeph-subagent (arXiv:2603.21692) #4101 — AER reasoning provenance: structured behavioral analytics beyond execution traces (arXiv:2603.21692)
• research(orchestration): PrefixGuard-style online failure monitors from agent execution traces (arXiv:2605.06455) #4120 — PrefixGuard online failure monitors from agent execution traces (arXiv:2605.06455)
• research(subagent): multi-agent failure attribution and error propagation survey — LIFE progression framework (arXiv:2605.14892) #4121 — Multi-agent failure attribution and error propagation survey: LIFE framework (arXiv:2605.14892)
• research(orchestration): CANTANTE contrastive credit attribution for multi-agent cost reduction — evaluate for zeph-subagent reward shaping (arXiv:2605.13295) #4098 — CANTANTE contrastive credit attribution for multi-agent cost reduction (arXiv:2605.13295)

Adjacent: #4152 (RL from orchestration traces, kept independent) — same data substrate but different angle.

Existing Coverage

• /specs/010-security/010-4-audit.md — Cross-tool injection correlation, audit trail
• /specs/009-orchestration/spec.md — VeriMAP predicate gate, AdaptOrch topology advisor
• /specs/035-profiling/spec.md — Per-span tracing instrumentation

Question to Resolve

Define the failure attribution model for Zeph multi-agent execution: which signals (provenance graph, prefix monitors, contrastive credit, LIFE classification) should be captured, where they live (audit log vs telemetry vs subagent transcript), and how they drive subsequent runs (reward shaping, capability adjustment, planner feedback).

Acceptance

Failure-attribution data model proposed; mapping to existing audit/telemetry/subagent transcript surfaces; RL feedback hook identified (or deferred).