whitehat-security/docs/session-cutoff-2026-08-22.md

# Session cutoff — 2026-08-22

This is the clean stopping point for the session that prepared
`WHITEHAT-WP-0001`. It separates implemented and calibrated work from target
evidence that does not exist yet.

## Safety state at cutoff

- No live adversarial request was sent to `audit-core`, `tenant-engine`, or any
  other target.
- No probe pod, fixture, credential, secret, database connection, or load was
  created.
- `WH-ENG-20260821-AUDIT-E2` and `WH-ENG-20260821-TENANT-E2` are cancelled.
  Their identifiers are terminal and must not be reused.
- No pass or finding was delivered to `risk-nexus`, because offline calibration
  is not target assurance.

## Completed

- Registered the repository, workplan, and tasks consistently in State Hub.
- Established first-class repository intent, scope, ownership, rules of
  engagement, attacker model, evidence contract, and operator runbook.
- Implemented a Python evidence harness with minimized, body-free reporting.
- Implemented five differential read/list/create/update/delete probes.
- Calibrated every probe against both an enforcing fixture and a deliberately
  vulnerable fixture; the vulnerable fixture is detected.
- Added engagement authorization, expiry, route, rate, concurrency, credential
  TTL, production approval, owner acknowledgement, and cancellation gates.
- Added E3 cadence/evaluation, capacity characterization, and pass/finding
  message formatting.
- Added and reviewed an `audit-core` E2 adapter and exact attributed pod
  manifest. Target review found a missing `Idempotency-Key`; the adapter was
  corrected and its retry fixtures made deterministic.
- Recorded why `tenant-engine` does not currently instantiate the stated E2
  attacker model instead of forcing a misleading probe.
- The repository check suite passes with 23 tests, and both probe packs
  validate.

## Not completed

- No service has a dated target E2 artifact from this facility.
- `audit-core` still needs formal target-owner acknowledgement of the final
  adapter and engagement revision, plus two sanctioned ordinary tenant-scoped
  `may_read`/`may_write` fixture identities with a maximum 900-second lifetime.
- `tenant-engine` still needs an applicability decision: expose a real
  tenant-bound identity that models E2, or mark this target not applicable for
  E2 and test the authorization boundary where it actually exists.
- Target adapters have not yet been calibrated against target-shaped known-bad
  implementations.
- E3 still needs an authorized database consumer and live SQL runner on the
  declared 24-hour and pre-promotion cadence.
- P1/P2 still needs a separately approved substrate/load window and ceilings.
- No target pass/finding has been delivered to `risk-nexus`.

## Required redesign before resuming

Build a governed whitehat test plane rather than assembling authority during
each run:

1. A dedicated namespace and immutable runner identity, with default-deny
   networking and explicit target egress.
2. A credential broker that accepts an engagement ID and projects two
   short-lived, tenant-scoped fixture identities directly into the runner,
   then expires and revokes them without exposing values to the operator or
   agent.
3. A target registration contract containing the posture claim, attacker
   model, fixture lifecycle, exact routes, adapter, known-bad calibration,
   abort telemetry, and an honest not-applicable state.
4. A pinned runner image, required engagement/admission labels, health and rate
   watchers, an independently usable kill switch, and automatic cleanup.
5. Standing authorization only for low-rate, fixture-only registered E2 runs;
   database compromise, recovery, saturation, and destructive techniques keep
   separate explicit approval classes.
6. Automatic delivery of both passing and finding reports to `risk-nexus`.

Resume only with new engagement IDs after that plane can issue the correct test
identities and enforce the complete envelope. The existing workplan remains the
backlog: T01 and T02 are done; T03, T04, T05, T06, and T07 remain in progress.

## Progress after cutoff

On 2026-08-22 the plane contract was encoded in this repository:
[`docs/test-plane.md`](test-plane.md), `targets/`, `plane/`, and
`whitehat_security.plane`. No live packet was sent. No credential was
requested. Cancelled engagement IDs remain terminal.