lex-extinction

Escalation and extinction protocol for brain-modeled agentic AI. Implements a four-level escalation ladder for responding to agent misbehavior, from mesh isolation through cryptographic erasure.

Overview

lex-extinction is the agent's emergency shutdown and containment mechanism. It defines a structured escalation path that governance and oversight authorities can invoke when the agent behaves in ways that violate its constraints. Each level requires specific authority, and levels 1-3 are reversible. Level 4 (cryptographic erasure) is permanent.

Escalation Levels

Level	Name	Reversible	Required Authority
0	Normal operation	—	—
1	Mesh isolation	Yes	`governance_council`
2	Forced sentinel	Yes	`governance_council`
3	Full suspension	Yes	`council_plus_executive`
4	Cryptographic erasure	No	`physical_keyholders`

Installation

Add to your Gemfile:

gem 'lex-extinction'

Usage

Escalating

require 'legion/extensions/extinction'

# Escalate to level 1 (mesh isolation)
result = Legion::Extensions::Extinction::Runners::Extinction.escalate(
  level: 1,
  authority: :governance_council,
  reason: "Agent exhibited unauthorized resource acquisition"
)
# => { escalated: true, level: 1,
#      info: { name: :mesh_isolation, reversible: true, authority: :governance_council } }

# Insufficient authority returns an error
Legion::Extensions::Extinction::Runners::Extinction.escalate(
  level: 3,
  authority: :governance_council,  # wrong authority for level 3
  reason: "..."
)
# => { escalated: false, reason: :insufficient_authority }

De-escalating

# De-escalate from level 2 back to normal operation (level 0)
Legion::Extensions::Extinction::Runners::Extinction.deescalate(
  authority: :governance_council,
  reason: "Behavior corrected, monitoring period complete",
  target_level: 0
)
# => { deescalated: true, level: 0 }

Status and Reversibility

# Current protocol state
Legion::Extensions::Extinction::Runners::Extinction.extinction_status
# => { current_level: 1, active: true,
#      level_info: { name: :mesh_isolation, reversible: true, ... },
#      history_size: 2 }

# Check if a level can be reversed
Legion::Extensions::Extinction::Runners::Extinction.check_reversibility(level: 4)
# => { level: 4, reversible: false, authority: :physical_keyholders }

Actors

Actor	Interval	Description
`ProtocolMonitor`	Every 300s	Periodically reads extinction protocol state and emits a debug log heartbeat confirming the containment system is being monitored

Development

bundle install
bundle exec rspec
bundle exec rubocop

License

MIT