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Delegation chain

By Updated

The sequence of agents a task passes through from the person or system that started it. It is governed so that each hop authenticates as itself, scope narrows or stays equal but never widens, the purpose travels with the task, depth and fan-out are bounded, and one trace spans every hop.

Developed in
ch. 23, Accountability across hops
Chapters
ch. 23, AI Agents
Contrast with
Delegation (OAuth token exchange)
Source
Defined by this Body of Knowledge: the section it is developed in is the source

Where it is used

One chapter of the Body of Knowledge uses the term. Each link opens the first section that does.

Delegation chain: mentions per chapter1 mention of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter23 AI Agents: 1 mention23 AI Agents1No mentions in the other 22 chaptersSource: the Body of Knowledgev0.5.0
Delegation chain: mentions per chapter1 mention of the term across 1 of the 23 chapters of the Body of Knowledge; the chapters the glossary cross-references are drawn solid.Cross-referenced chapter0001020304050607081011121314151617181920212223 AI Agents: 1 mention123Source: the Body of Knowledge v0.5.0
Mentions per chapter How often each chapter names the term, with the chapters the glossary cross-references drawn solid. The longest bar is where to read the term in use; bars spread across many chapters mark a term that runs through the discipline.
Mentions as a table
Mentions of Delegation chain per chapter
ChapterMentionsCross-referenced
00 Preface0No
01 Definition0No
02 Why Now0No
03 Values & Principles0No
04 The Stack0No
05 Patterns0No
06 The Role0No
07 Maturity Model0No
08 Regulatory Map0No
10 Reading List0No
11 AI Defined0No
12 Governance Program0No
13 Risk Management0No
14 Development0No
15 Deployment0No
16 Fairness & XAI0No
17 Incidents0No
18 EU AI Act0No
19 Privacy & AI0No
20 Existing Law0No
21 AI Laws Worldwide0No
22 Principles & Standards0No
23 AI Agents1Yes
  • Transaction token (Txn-Token)

    A short-lived, signed token, specified in an IETF OAuth working group draft, that carries user identity, workload identity and authorisation context through a…

Sources

No external source: the term is coined or used in a specific sense by this Body of Knowledge, and the section linked under "Developed in" is its source.

Definitions of legal terms paraphrase the cited text, which governs. Dated statements are as of .

Cite this term

García Aibar, J. (2026). Delegation chain. In AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis & Body of Knowledge (v0.5.0), Glossary. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197. https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/delegation-chain. CC BY 4.0

BibTeX

@misc{aige2026delegationchain,
  author  = {Jorge García Aibar},
  title   = {{Delegation chain}},
  note    = {Glossary, AI Governance Engineering: The Thesis \& Body of Knowledge, version 0.5.0},
  year    = {2026},
  doi     = {10.5281/zenodo.22956197},
  url     = {https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/delegation-chain}
}