T68a Key Lifecycle and Portability Validation

Scope

T68a completes the persistent evidence-signing-key lifecycle and its two-environment portability proof. The implementation retains one encrypted Ed25519 key per logical identity in a machine-local state root, rotates and revokes keys fail closed, composes the CLI through KeyProviderPort, and now proves that a package created on one environment can be verified and resumed on another without moving private state.

The portability proof uses two separate disposable local state roots. The source environment has qualified Claude and Codex profiles; the receiver has a qualified OpenCode/Qwen profile. Those local profiles are deliberately not serialized into the portable package or the Run Capsule.

Deterministic gates

Command	Result
`node --test tests/e2e/key-lifecycle-portability.test.mjs`	PASS — one two-environment journey, zero failures/skips
`pnpm gate:quick`	PASS — run on a clean checkout detached at `73b2060edb8a7e66a93a88bc795a64d5aa8fa725`
`pnpm gate:full`	PASS — manual validation run 30494937450 resolved and checked out `73b2060edb8a7e66a93a88bc795a64d5aa8fa725`, then uploaded the candidate-identity artifact recording that revision and `gate:full`
`pnpm gate:security`	PASS — run on a clean checkout detached at `73b2060edb8a7e66a93a88bc795a64d5aa8fa725`

No profile is a superset of another, so each is listed with what it actually ran rather than with a coverage claim inherited from a different profile:

Profile	Stages
`gate:quick`	`format:check`, `lint`, `typecheck`, `test:unit`, `test:agent-readiness`
`gate:full`	`format:check`, `lint`, `typecheck`, `test:unit`, `test:contract`, `test:integration`, `test:e2e`, `test:fault`
`gate:security`	`format:check`, `lint`, `typecheck`, `build`, `test:unit`, `test:architecture`, `test:qualification`, `test:security`, `test:fault`

Together the three cover every declared stage except test:release, which belongs to the release profile and to T76 rather than to this task.

These gates were rerun on the reachable implementation revision after the initial report was found to name a PR-side revision that was not an ancestor of main. The correction changes the evidence binding and restores pnpm gate:security, which an earlier draft of this correction had dropped in favour of a pnpm gate:quick row justified by the untrue claim that quick is contained in full - it is not, since only quick runs test:agent-readiness. Neither this nor any other line here asserts that the required independent human acceptance has occurred.

Replayable two-minute demonstration

From a clean clone at reachable main ancestor 73b2060edb8a7e66a93a88bc795a64d5aa8fa725:

$ corepack pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
$ node --test tests/e2e/key-lifecycle-portability.test.mjs
✔ an Execution Package crosses two machine-local key roots and resumes under a different qualified driver
ℹ pass 1
ℹ fail 0
ℹ skipped 0

The journey creates a persistent source signing key, seals an Execution Package, transfers only the package and the public trust root, and makes the receiver verify it. The receiver then seals and verifies a completed Run Capsule with its distinct local signing key. Replacing the transferred trust root with the receiver’s local root is required to fail with VES_TRUST_KEY_UNKNOWN.

Spec-anchored adequacy matrix

Requirement	Exact evidence	Result
KEY-01 persistent load/create	`tests/unit/encrypted-file-key-provider.test.mjs`; T2 handoff evidence	PASS
KEY-02 encrypted machine-local private material	provider unit/security cases; portability test checks the transfer excludes passphrases and state roots	PASS
KEY-03 overlap rotation	`tests/unit/encrypted-file-key-rotation.test.mjs`; T3 handoff evidence	PASS
KEY-04 revocation, expiry, and purpose fail closed	key-rotation unit/security cases and public error contract	PASS
KEY-05 composition only through `KeyProviderPort`	`tests/integration/cli-key-provider-composition.test.mjs`; T4 handoff evidence	PASS
KEY-06 package portability and continuation	`tests/e2e/key-lifecycle-portability.test.mjs`: source package, transferred public trust root, receiver verification, distinct qualified profiles, and receiver Run Capsule	PASS
KEY-07 corrupted keystore fails closed	provider unit/security cases for malformed, truncated, tampered, and wrong-passphrase envelopes	PASS

Independent discrimination sensor

The E2E journey contains one explicit adversarial trust mutation:

Mutation	Expected behavior	Result
Replace the transferred source trust root with the receiver’s local trust root	Package verification returns `VES_TRUST_KEY_UNKNOWN`; no continuation capsule may be justified from that verification	KILLED

The successful path only executes after the source public key is restored in the transferred trust root. The test also rejects passphrase and state-root text in both keystores and every portable artifact it transfers.

Non-shallow checks

The source and receiver use distinct encrypted-file providers and distinct key identities; no ephemeral test signer is used for the package journey.
The receiver first attempts verification with its own local trust root and is rejected before the source public trust root is imported.
The package is verified through ExecutionPackageBuilder, including current state and derived pending-task checks, rather than through a raw signature helper.
The receiver creates a RunCapsule linked to the transferred package and verifies that capsule with its own public trust root.
Qualified driver profiles differ across environments while remaining local; neither profile, session, credential, passphrase, nor local state path is permitted in the transferred values.

Verdict

PASS for T68a. Verchestra has qualified persistent local signing-key management and a reproducible two-environment evidence portability proof. It remains 0.0.0-qualification; this evidence does not constitute a public installer, production release, or 1.0 decision.