@zackbart/connecta 0.28.1 → 0.30.0

package/documentation/auth.md

@@ -1,31 +1,83 @@
 # Inbound auth
 
-Inbound auth decides who may reach the MCP endpoint. Import `bearerToken` from
-`@zackbart/connecta/auth/bearer`, `clerkAuth` from `/auth/clerk`, or
-`cloudflareAccessAuth` from `/auth/cloudflare-access`. Providers may be combined;
-static bearers are checked first, then other providers in configuration order.
-An `InboundAuth` provider's `authorize(request, baseUrl, runtimeContext)`
-returns either `{ ok: true, userId?, subjectId?, principal? }` or a refusal
-carrying its own `Response`, so the provider owns its challenge. Connecta
-issues managed client tokens only when the optional `accessTokens` module is configured.
-
-The bearer adapter challenges with `WWW-Authenticate: Bearer` and deliberately
-omits `resource_metadata`: its credential is configured out of band, so it has no
-authorization server or registration endpoint to advertise. Interactive adapters
-or the edge own OAuth discovery. An open deployment with any connector warns at
-construction — including API connectors carrying static auth headers, and with
-sharper wording for credential and OAuth connectors.
+## Task routes
+
+[Agent index](./README.md) distinguishes endpoint operation from deployment
+and package maintenance. This guide owns identity, grants, and downstream
+credential contracts; use [deployment setup](./deploying.md) for runnable steps.
+
+| Task                                                  | Sections                                                                                                                                                                      |
+| ----------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| Connect a machine or migrate an old client            | [Managed tokens](#managed-client-tokens-and-upgrading-from-v023), [static bearer migration](#migrating-static-bearer-clients)                                                 |
+| Configure caller visibility, trust, or auth ownership | [Principals and operators](#principals-visibility-and-operators), [pools](#pools), [shared and personal auth](#shared-and-personal-auth)                                      |
+| Set up human sign-in                                  | [Access on Workers](#cloudflare-access-on-workers), [Clerk tokens and sessions](#clerk-oauth-tokens-and-operator-sessions), [management](#human-authentication-management)    |
+| Enable credential or connection controls              | [Management permissions](#management-permissions), [start/restart/disconnect](#starting-restarting-and-disconnecting)                                                         |
+| Diagnose consent or token refresh                     | [State at rest](#downstream-oauth-state-at-rest), [callbacks](#consents-and-callbacks), [refresh failures](#refresh-failures), [safe errors](#what-a-servers-errors-may-say)  |
+| Configure a downstream OAuth client or HTTP handler   | [Client registration](#downstream-oauth-client-registration), [api() OAuth](#downstream-oauth-on-api), [request-local bearer tokens](#request-local-downstream-bearer-tokens) |
+| Review browser or downstream URL boundaries           | [Origins](#origins), [advertised URLs](#urls-a-downstream-advertises), [one server per grant](#one-server-per-grant)                                                          |
+
+[Credential recognition and admission](#credential-recognition-and-admission)
+defines refusal precedence.
+[Source and tests](#source-and-tests) points to the implementation. Migration
+sections describe upgrade procedures, not additional auth modes to enable.
+
+## Credential recognition and admission
+
+Inbound auth decides who may reach the MCP endpoint. People use `clerkAuth`
+from `@zackbart/connecta/auth/clerk` or `cloudflareAccessAuth` from
+`/auth/cloudflare-access`. Machines use `accessTokens(storage)` from
+`/auth/access-tokens`, which installs the `cta_` adapter before human providers.
+Access is Workers-only; Node uses Clerk.
+
+An `InboundAuth` provider recognizes credential syntax or trusted runtime
+context with synchronous `recognizesCredential(request, runtimeContext)`.
+Recognition does no verification or I/O. The first recognizing provider owns
+the request, including refusals, so an invalid machine credential cannot fall
+back to an ambient browser identity. An explicit Authorization header is
+decisive on every protected route. A shared parser normalizes the
+case-insensitive Bearer scheme; unsupported schemes, malformed spacing, empty
+values, combined duplicate headers, and verification failures return 401.
+Cookies, Clerk browser handshake credentials, and trusted Access context are
+excluded from that request. Access cannot verify caller headers and refuses
+them. If no provider recognizes a valid header, the first eligible provider
+owns its verdict. Without an Authorization header, providers are tried in
+configuration order until admission or a response other than 401.
+Browser OAuth starts and callbacks retain the 401 challenge for an explicit
+header refusal.
+Custom providers can omit recognition when they supply no distinct credential
+syntax; providers with credentials should implement it. A recognition throw
+refuses the request without logging the thrown text.
+
+The `cta_` syntax is reserved even without the optional token verifier: it
+refuses rather than becoming an ambient human or an open anonymous request.
+Async recognition hooks fail at construction; unexpected rejected promises
+are consumed before refusal so their text cannot reach runtime output.
+Human routes reject recognized machine credentials without consulting token
+storage, then ask only interactive providers. Replace custom `final` and
+`finalRefusals` handling with recognition; handshake redirects and admission
+policy refusals are provider verdicts too. Recognition grants no identity.
+
+`authorize` returns `{ ok: true, userId?, subjectId?, principal? }` or a refusal
+carrying a `Response`. On 401, routing and challenge selection use the first
+provider that actually answers the endpoint's protected-resource metadata
+request. Its `challenge(request, baseUrl)` supplies `WWW-Authenticate`, including
+`scope`; an unrelated metadata hook does not own resource discovery. Machine-only
+endpoints challenge with `Bearer` and advertise no authorization server. With
+Clerk, even a refused `cta_` token receives Clerk's resource metadata challenge.
+An open deployment with connectors warns at construction.
+
+Clerk denial logs carry checked fixed reason codes. Provider user IDs, email
+addresses, and email domains stay out of denial logs, activity, and status,
+including email lookup failures and admission policy refusals.
 
 ## Managed client tokens and upgrading from v0.23
 
-Import `accessTokens` from `@zackbart/connecta/auth/access-tokens` and pass its
-module to `createConnecta`. It installs its inbound adapter and, beside `ui`,
-the Access tokens page and `/ui/access-tokens` lifecycle routes. Omitting the
-module loads none of its implementation and serves none of those routes.
+`accessTokens` from `@zackbart/connecta/auth/access-tokens` installs its inbound
+adapter and, beside `ui`, the Access tokens page and `/ui/access-tokens`
+routes. Omitted, none of it loads or is served.
 
 ```ts
 import { accessTokens } from "@zackbart/connecta/auth/access-tokens";
-
 createConnecta({
   storage,
   accessTokens: accessTokens(storage),
@@ -37,46 +89,41 @@ createConnecta({
       principal?.namespace === "clerk:your-existing-namespace" &&
       principal.id === "your-operator-id",
   },
-  connectors,
-  executor,
+  connectors, executor,
 });
 ```
 
-For a v0.23 deployment, replace the old `accessTokens: true` or options object
-with `accessTokens: accessTokens(storage)`, using **the same storage and key
-namespace**. Keep the existing `access-token:v1:record:*` and
-`access-token:v1:lookup:*` records. Their unrevoked `cta_…` secrets keep working;
-no secret recovery, rewrite, or client rotation is needed. Preserve the existing
-identity namespaces and connector/pool grant callbacks too. Storage compatibility
-does not translate deployment configuration or invent replacement grants.
-
-The adapter preserves `access_token` actor ids, the
-`connecta:access-tokens:v1` activity namespace, friendly names, and any stored
-principal. A token without a principal stays unbound. Every request evaluates
-current identity/tool/pool grants; a token never becomes an interactive operator.
-Names are labels, never permissions. New UI-issued tokens belong to the issuing
-human's principal, and any explicitly permitted token manager can list, rename,
-or revoke deployment tokens. Static and managed bearers cannot manage tokens or
-connection credentials. Operators need an interactive auth provider.
-
-Storage must implement `list`. Existing-token verification, rename, and revoke
-also work on older adapters without `compareAndSet`; **new issuance requires
-atomic `compareAndSet`**, because counting records before writing admits too many
-concurrent creates. Active capacity defaults to 100, configurable with
-`accessTokens(storage, { maxActive: 200 })`, up to 1,000. A durable reservation
-counts before a secret is written. Failures before lookup publication release
-their reservation; an uncertain lookup write retains its metadata and capacity
-so an operator can revoke it, even when creation returned no secret. Creation is
-never automatically retried. Avoid creating new tokens through old-version instances once
-new-version issuance has started, since those instances do not honor reservations.
-
-Secrets contain 256 random bits and only their SHA-256 digests persist. Creation
-returns the secret once; list and rename never return it. Revocation removes its
-lookup before updating metadata, and authorization has no token cache. A strongly
-consistent store makes revocation effective on the next authorization; an
-eventually consistent backend retains its own propagation delay. Requests already
-admitted are not recalled. Management writes require an exact same-origin Origin,
-and responses are private and non-cacheable.
+From v0.23, replace `accessTokens: true` or its options object with
+`accessTokens(storage)` on **the same storage and key namespace**, keeping the
+`access-token:v1:record:*` and `access-token:v1:lookup:*` records: unrevoked
+`cta_…` secrets keep working with no recovery, rewrite, or client rotation. Keep
+the identity namespaces and connector/pool grant callbacks too; storage
+compatibility translates no configuration and invents no grants. `access_token`
+actor ids, the `connecta:access-tokens:v1` activity namespace, friendly names,
+and stored principals carry over; a token without a principal stays unbound.
+Every request evaluates current identity, tool, and pool grants, and a token
+never becomes an interactive operator. Names are labels, never permissions. A
+UI-issued token belongs to the issuing human's principal, and any explicitly
+permitted token manager can list, rename, or revoke deployment tokens. Machine tokens manage neither tokens nor connection credentials; operators
+need an interactive provider.
+
+Issuance claims capacity with `compareAndSet`, because counting records before
+writing admits too many concurrent creates; every supported store provides
+it. Active
+capacity defaults to 100, configurable with
+`accessTokens(storage, { maxActive: 200 })` up to 1,000, counted by a durable
+reservation before a secret is written. A failure before lookup publication
+releases it; an uncertain lookup write keeps its metadata and capacity so an
+operator can revoke it, even if creation returned no secret. Creation is never
+retried automatically, and once new-version issuance starts, old-version
+instances must create no tokens: they ignore reservations.
+
+Secrets carry 256 random bits; only SHA-256 digests persist. Creation returns
+the secret once, list and rename never. Revocation removes the lookup before
+updating metadata and authorization caches no token, so revocation takes
+effect on the next authorization (D1 and SQLite are strongly consistent);
+admitted requests are not recalled. Management writes
+require an exact same-origin Origin; responses are private and non-cacheable.
 
 ## Origins
 
@@ -92,60 +139,60 @@ silently never matching. A permitted origin still has to authenticate.
 
 ## Principals, visibility, and operators
 
-One authorization yields three roles. The **actor** identifies the caller in
-activity, the **subject** owns transient results such as `get_result` pages, and
-the **principal** is the human owner of personal connector auth. An interactive
-Clerk or Access user supplies all three; a Cloudflare service identity has an
-actor and subject but no principal.
-
-The principal is whichever comes first: an explicit `principal: { namespace, id }`
-returned by `authorize`, accepted whenever it validates, or else one derived from
-`userId` plus the provider's `activityActorNamespace`. A provider that returns its
-own principal therefore needs no namespace declared; one relying on the derived
-path does.
-
-A subject or user id always selects a result-stash partition, even with no
-`activityActorNamespace` declared — the namespace is then
-`connecta:auth:<provider kind>`, and subject ids must be distinct within it. That
-fallback grants no personal-auth ownership and changes no activity attribution. A
-provider supplying only an explicit principal uses it as the subject too. Open
-deployments and providers that return no identity share one result partition.
-
-`identity.connectorAccess` returns `"all"` — the default — or a list of grants:
-a declared connector id opens every tool on it, a `connector.tool` address opens
-that tool alone, and `{ tool: "connector.tool", requireReadOnly: true }` opens
-that exact tool only while the loaded catalog says it is explicitly read-only.
-The guarded form accepts no connector-wide grant. Grants are additive, so a
-bare id or an unrestricted address beside a guarded address wins for that
-tool. It governs discovery and use alike.
+One authorization yields three roles: the **actor** identifies the caller in
+activity, the **subject** owns transient results such as `connecta.result` pages,
+and the **principal** is the human owner of personal connector auth. An
+interactive Clerk or Access user supplies all three; Access service identities are refused; machines present `cta_` tokens. The principal is an explicit
+`principal: { namespace, id }` from `authorize`, accepted whenever it
+validates, or else one derived from `userId` and the provider's
+`activityActorNamespace`, so only the derived path needs a namespace.
+
+A subject or user id always selects a result-stash partition; undeclared, the
+namespace is `connecta:auth:<provider kind>`, where subject ids must be
+distinct, and that fallback grants no personal-auth ownership and changes no
+activity attribution. An explicit principal alone is the subject too. Open
+deployments and providers returning no identity share one result partition.
+
+A maintained provider that acts _as_ the caller downstream — `gmail()` through
+Google Workspace domain-wide delegation — reads none of these roles on its own.
+Its `subject` option, a deployment-config function from the admitted identity
+to a downstream account (a Clerk principal id to a Workspace address, say) or
+one fixed address, is applied once per call and only to a request an inbound
+provider authenticated: any `ok`, a subject-less custom credential included, never an open
+deployment's anonymous admission. Otherwise, or on `undefined`, the call fails
+`auth_required` before any request leaves. Arguments, headers, and programs
+never reach it; a deployment's own connectors still cannot read the caller.
+
+`identity.connectorAccess` returns `"all"` (the default) or grants, for
+discovery and use alike: a connector id opens every tool on it, a
+`connector.tool` address that tool alone, and
+`{ tool: "connector.tool", requireReadOnly: true }` that tool only while the
+loaded catalog says it is explicitly read-only, never connector-wide. Grants
+are additive, so a bare id or unrestricted address beside a guarded one wins.
 
 Tool grants are enforced in the scoped registry view, below the catalog service,
-so `search_tools`, both call tools, a program's `connecta.search`,
-`connecta.describe`, and `connecta.call`, and the connection UI all read the same
-filtered list. Connector-level discovery, guides, and `authorize_connector` keep
-a connector when any tool on it is granted, so a `docs.read` grant permits the
-`docs` authorization handoff. Without any grant on `docs`, `authorize_connector`
-returns the same "Unknown connector" refusal as an absent connector, and an
-ungranted tool fails exactly like one the connector never had: `unknown_tool`,
-with no hint that it exists. That is the whole security claim, and it lives in
-one place on purpose.
-
-There is no *caller-selected* tool set. A narrower slice is a branch in this
-resolver or a config-declared pool; a bot that needs its own slice is its own
-bearer subject. What a request may never do is name its own scope.
+so `search_tools`, `describe_tools`, both call tools, a program's
+`connecta.search`, `connecta.describe`, and `connecta.call`, and the connection
+UI read one filtered list. Connector-level discovery, guides, and
+`authorize_connector` keep a connector when any of its tools is granted —
+`docs.read` permits the `docs` handoff. Without one it is absent: discovery
+omits it, and `authorize_connector` returns the same "Unknown connector" refusal
+as for a connector that does not exist. An ungranted tool fails exactly like one
+the connector never had: `unknown_tool`, with no hint that it exists. That is
+the whole security claim, in one place on purpose. There is no _caller-selected_
+tool set: a narrower slice is a branch in this resolver or a pool, and a bot
+needing its own is its own stored token subject. A request may never name its own
+scope.
 
 ### Team read sets
 
-`connectorAccess` is the supported way to give Engineering and Marketing
-different views of one deployment. Keep membership in deployment code and
-review the exact tool addresses you intend to grant:
+Keep team membership in deployment code and review exact addresses:
 
 ```ts
 const engineering = new Set(["engineer-id"]);
 const marketing = new Set(["marketer-id"]);
 const engineeringGrants = ["issues", { tool: "campaigns.list", requireReadOnly: true }] as const;
 const marketingGrants = ["campaigns", { tool: "issues.search", requireReadOnly: true }] as const;
-
 createConnecta({
   auth: cloudflareAccessAuth(),
   identity: {
@@ -158,73 +205,85 @@ createConnecta({
       ])];
     },
   },
-  connectors: [issues, campaigns, billing],
-  executor,
+  connectors: [issues, campaigns, billing], executor,
 });
 ```
 
-Here Engineering sees every `issues` tool and only `campaigns.list`;
-Marketing sees every `campaigns` tool and only `issues.search`. Neither sees
-`billing`. Someone in both groups gets both connectors in full because grants
-are additive. An unknown or unprincipalled identity gets an empty view. The
-example assumes the two exact tools have been reviewed as read-only; the names
-themselves carry no safety meaning. The guarded grants also check the current
-loaded annotations before discovery or use. Use a stable authenticated
-principal or subject for membership, never a request header or tool argument. A pool can
-narrow any of these views on its endpoint, but cannot make plain `/mcp` narrower.
-
-New tool names are excluded until added to a reviewed list. A removed or
-renamed name is unreachable and warned when the scoped view reads its catalog.
-For a guarded grant, missing, false, or contradictory read-only annotations
-also remove that tool from discovery and every invocation path, including
-`call_destructive_tool` and approval-exempt programs. An unrestricted exact
-string grant has the earlier behavior: a tool that changes from read to write
-stays granted, though `call_tool` refuses it and the write paths take over.
-Changing schema alone does not revoke either kind of grant. Review schemas,
-annotations, and downstream behavior before changing lists or upgrading a
-maintained provider. An arbitrary remote MCP catalog can drift without a
-package upgrade; a valid stale cached catalog may keep its earlier
-classification until refresh. A downstream can also keep a read-only
-annotation while changing the behavior behind it. For `api()` tools, the
-deployment author owns both declaration and handler. Connecta enforces the
-loaded declaration, not the downstream's promise of no side effects. A
-restricted downstream credential adds protection where the provider offers
-one, but does not replace the per-identity grant.
-
-When the resolver returns `[]`, connector-level discovery and the connection
-UI have no connectors to show. An address-only grant can leave a connector
-visible while its named tool is absent; the tool stays unreachable. A failed
-remote catalog load is an error, not an empty successful catalog; a valid stale
-catalog may be served within its configured stale window. A guarded grant
-whose tool loses qualification can leave its connector visible with no tools.
-Personal OAuth ownership and credential-administration permissions remain separate from
-visibility. These are the checks for a team read set:
-
-| Boundary | Expected result for a reviewed address and an excluded write |
-| --- | --- |
-| `search_tools`, `describe_tools`, connector guides | Show the granted address; omit the write. |
-| `call_tool` | Invoke an explicitly read-only granted address; return `unknown_tool` for the write. |
-| `call_destructive_tool` | Return `unknown_tool` for the excluded write, without dispatch. |
-| `execute_code` search, describe, call | See granted tools only; refuse the excluded write. A granted write still follows the separate approval rules. |
-| Connection UI | List granted tools only; never turn visibility into credential administration. |
-| `/mcp/<pool>` | Intersect its grants with the identity view; plain `/mcp` keeps the identity view. |
-
-Integration tests in `test/identity-scope.test.ts` exercise these paths and
-the older unrestricted exact-grant behavior.
+Engineering sees all `issues` tools and only `campaigns.list`; Marketing sees all
+`campaigns` tools and only `issues.search`. Neither sees `billing`; both memberships
+grant both connectors in full. Unknown or unprincipalled identities get `[]`.
+Use a stable authenticated principal or subject, never request headers or tool
+arguments. A token's stored principal is vouched for by inbound auth. Pools narrow their endpoint, not plain `/mcp`.
+
+| Catalog change                                           | Guarded exact grant                                                                                      | Unrestricted exact string grant                                     |
+| -------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| New name                                                 | Excluded until reviewed and added                                                                        | Excluded until reviewed and added                                   |
+| Removed or renamed name                                  | Unreachable; warned when the scoped view reads the catalog                                               | Same                                                                |
+| Stored write verdict after overrides and provider review | Removed from discovery and every invocation path, including `call_destructive_tool` and trusted programs | Still granted; `call_tool` refuses writes and write paths take over |
+| Schema change alone                                      | Does not revoke, unless it breaks a reviewed digest: then it is a write, as above                        | Same as above                                                       |
+
+The example assumes both exact tools were reviewed as read-only; names imply no safety.
+Review schemas, annotations, and downstream behavior
+before changing lists or upgrading providers. Remote catalogs can drift without
+upgrades; fresh cached facts are classified against the current review on every read; downstreams
+can change behavior while keeping read-only annotations. For `api()`, the author
+owns declarations and handlers. Connecta enforces loaded declarations, not
+absence of side effects. Restricted downstream credentials do not replace grants.
+
+`[]` hides all connectors from discovery and the connection UI. Address-only or
+disqualified guarded grants can leave a connector visible with its tool unreachable.
+Failed remote loads are errors, not empty catalogs. A transient first-page tool
+listing failure may serve complete facts in the same auth partition for five
+minutes after expiry. Failed pagination, permission and auth failures do not
+use this fallback. The expired deadline cannot authorize auth recovery. Personal OAuth ownership and credential
+administration are separate from visibility; program writes follow the endpoint's trust tier and host approval. `test/identity-scope.test.ts` exercises these boundaries.
+
+## Migrating static bearer clients
+
+The `/auth/bearer` export, `bearerToken`, and its `assertedPrincipal` header
+mode are removed. Existing static secrets cannot be converted into `cta_`
+secrets. Use a separate stored token for each machine or human owner:
+
+1. Configure the existing D1 or SQLite store as `storage`, and install
+   `accessTokens(storage)`. Keep its existing keys and namespaces.
+2. Sign in through Clerk or Worker Access. Grant the intended token manager
+   `identity.accessTokenManagement`, then create a token on Access tokens.
+   It is bound to that human's principal. For a machine without a human owner,
+   provision `new AccessTokenManager(storage).create("machine-name", "deployment-provisioning")` from
+   trusted deployment code. The Node template provides `npm run provision-token -- machine-name`.
+3. Update `identity.connectorAccess` and pool grants to the returned token
+   metadata id with `actor.kind === "access_token"`. Names and `tokenPrefix`
+   are display labels. Keep existing human principal namespaces unchanged.
+4. Save the once-returned secret in the client's secret store and send
+   `Authorization: Bearer cta_…`. Behind Worker Access, also satisfy the edge
+   with Access service credentials; an Access-only machine no longer admits.
+5. Verify MCP initialization and the intended grants. Confirm the old static
+   secret refuses, then remove its environment secret and the old import.
+   Remove `X-Connecta-Principal`; a token's stored principal cannot vary by
+   request. Provision one human-bound token per represented user instead.
+   To retain an old asserted user's personal state, trusted provisioning must
+   call `manager.create(name, { namespace: existingNamespace, id: existingId })`
+   with the exact existing namespace and canonical id, after applying the old
+   admission policy. A Clerk UI token uses the Clerk principal instead and
+   cannot inherit a different asserted namespace's partitions.
+
+Revocation acts on the next request. Rotate by creating a replacement,
+updating the client, verifying it, and revoking the old token. Keep token text
+out of logs and reports.
 
 ## Pools
 
 A pool is a named slice of the deployment served at its own endpoint,
 `/mcp/<pool>`, for when one identity needs different capability sets on different
 clients: a support agent that sees three Notion tools and Linear, a calendar bot
-that sees one tool, both over the same credentials and catalog cache.
+that sees one tool, both over the same credentials. Private remote catalog
+cache entries remain partitioned by the admitted pool.
 
 ```ts
 createConnecta({
-  auth: [
-    bearerToken(botSecret, { subjectId: "calendar-bot" }),
-    clerkAuth({ publishableKey, secretKey }),
-  ],
+  storage,
+  accessTokens: accessTokens(storage),
+  auth: clerkAuth({ publishableKey, secretKey }),
   pools: {
     support: {
       tools: ["linear", "notion.search_pages", "notion.fetch_page"],
@@ -232,50 +291,34 @@ createConnecta({
     },
     calendar_bot: {
       tools: ["calendar.create_event"],
-      grant: ({ actor }) => actor.id === "calendar-bot",
+      grant: ({ actor }) => actor.kind === "access_token" && actor.id === calendarTokenId,
     },
   },
   identity: { connectorAccess },
-  connectors,
-  executor,
+  connectors, executor,
 });
 ```
 
-Pools are meaningless without configured `auth`: an open deployment builds one
-anonymous, non-interactive identity, so grants like these evaluate false and
-every pool path 404s. The rules, each of which is a test:
-
-- **A pool narrows; it never widens.** The view on `/mcp/<pool>` is the pool
-  intersected with the identity's own `connectorAccess`. Plain `/mcp` is
-  unchanged. The security boundary is still the resolver; the pool decides which
-  part of it a given client sees.
-- **Grant defaults to deny.** A pool with no `grant` serves nobody. Only a
-  literal `true` admits; any other return, a throw, and an undeclared pool name
-  produce one 404 identical in status, body, and headers, reached only after auth
-  succeeds — so pool names are not anonymously enumerable, and a valid credential
-  cannot tell the three cases apart by response content. Timing is not hidden: a
-  declared name awaits its grant while an undeclared name returns without that
-  lookup. We accept that oracle because names grant no access and a fixed delay
-  could not hide unbounded grant I/O anyway. Keep grants pure and fast; don't
-  treat pool names as secrets. The operator log carries the refusal reason.
-- **Structural mistakes throw at construction.** A malformed name, an unknown
-  option, an unknown connector, an empty pool, and a `connector.tool` address an
-  `api()` connector's static catalog lacks all refuse to boot. Remote catalogs
-  load lazily, so their addresses are checked at load instead.
-- **OAuth discovery follows the path.** On Clerk, the 401 challenge for
-  `/mcp/<pool>` names `/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp/<pool>`, whose
-  `resource` is the pool URL, so RFC 9728 clients see a match. Cloudflare
-  Managed OAuth is application-level and needs nothing.
-
-An address the live catalog does not contain is unreachable and warned once
-while it sits in a 1,024-entry FIFO, so caller-derived grant text cannot grow
-retained warning state without bound. Later catalog drift can never widen a
-grant: there is no wildcard, and every tool grant is an exact name.
+Without configured `auth`, an open deployment has one anonymous, non-interactive
+identity; grants like these return false and every pool path 404s.
+
+| Rule         | Contract                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
+| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
+| Scope        | `/mcp/<pool>` intersects pool tools with the identity's `connectorAccess`, never widening it. Plain `/mcp` is unchanged; the resolver remains the security boundary.                                                                                         |
+| Grant        | Defaults to deny; only literal `true` admits. Other returns, throws, and undeclared names produce an identical 404 status, body, and headers, after auth. Names are not anonymously enumerable; valid credentials cannot distinguish these cases by content. |
+| Timing       | Declared names await grants, so timing is not hidden. Keep grants pure and fast and names unsecret; names grant no access. The operator log records the refusal reason.                                                                                      |
+| Construction | Malformed names, unknown options or connectors, empty pools, and addresses absent from an `api()` static catalog throw. Remote catalogs are checked at lazy load.                                                                                            |
+| Discovery    | Clerk's pool 401 names `/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp/<pool>` with the pool URL as `resource`, matching RFC 9728. Cloudflare Managed OAuth is application-level and needs no pool setup.                                                         |
+| Drift        | No wildcards; tool grants are exact names. Missing live tools are unreachable and warned once while in a bounded 1,024-entry FIFO.                                                                                                                           |
 
 ## Shared and personal auth
 
 Connector auth defaults to `authScope: "shared"` — its credential, OAuth state,
-tokens, catalog cache, and connector storage belong to the deployment. Set
+tokens and connector storage belong to the deployment. Private remote catalog
+cache entries still include the admitted principal and pool; shared credentials
+do not authorize cross-principal or cross-pool cache reuse. Public entries
+require a downstream `cacheScope: "public"` declaration and contain only
+intake-redacted successes, keyed by connector configuration. Set
 `authScope: "personal"` when every human needs a separate downstream account:
 
 ```ts
@@ -284,157 +327,394 @@ remoteMcp("linear", { url: "https://mcp.linear.app/mcp", authScope: "personal",
 ```
 
 A personal connector is absent — not refused — from any request without a
-stable namespaced principal. For a principal that can see one, connecta
-partitions connector storage, vault records, catalog caches, OAuth generations,
-and observed result shapes under an opaque SHA-256 identity key. Refreshes
-coalesce within one owner; another owner's authorization epoch cannot retire
-that refresh. Keep namespaces
-and principal ids stable across upgrades; changing either selects different
-partitions. Literal `auth: { type: "headers" }` cannot be personal, because its
-secret lives in deployment code; `remoteMcp()` refuses that combination at
-construction.
+stable namespaced principal. For one that can see it, connector storage, vault
+records, OAuth generations, and observed result shapes are
+partitioned under an opaque SHA-256 identity key. Remote catalog cache keys
+include that owner and the admitted pool, plus the credential digest and OAuth
+epoch; refreshes coalesce within
+one owner, and another owner's epoch cannot retire them. Keep namespaces and
+principal ids stable across upgrades, since changing either selects different
+partitions. Literal `auth: { type: "headers" }` keeps its secret in deployment
+code, so `remoteMcp()` refuses it as personal at construction.
 
 ## Downstream OAuth state at rest
 
-With a vault configured, a `remoteMcp()` OAuth connector's tokens, dynamically
-registered client (secret included), and PKCE verifier are sealed with the
-vault's AES-GCM key before they reach storage. The additional authenticated data
-names the connector, the owner partition, and the physical key, which carries
-the authorization epoch, so ciphertext copied to another connector, principal,
-or epoch does not open. Anything that fails to open — a tampered value, a
-rotated key — reads as absent: the connector reports `auth_required` and logs a
-warning. The flow bookkeeping stays plaintext: `state`, the pending URL,
-discovery metadata, and the generation. The callback route reads `state`
-directly, and none of it authenticates anything by itself. An
-[`api()` OAuth connector](#downstream-oauth-on-api) seals its tokens and
-verifier the same way and stores no client at all.
-
-Plaintext left by an older release is read, then sealed where it lies through
-the same generation fence as any write, so an upgrade keeps the grant. Sealing
-is one-way. An older release reads sealed state as unusable, so rolling back
-means authorizing again. A vault without the optional `seal`/`open` members
-keeps these values plaintext and draws a startup warning. Without any vault,
-nothing changes: the state is plaintext, as it always was.
-
-## Starting, restarting, and retiring an OAuth epoch
-
-Every downstream OAuth value lives under an **epoch**, the value of
-`oauth:generation`. A restart or disconnect publishes a new one before it
-deletes anything, and a write from a flow that captured an older epoch lands
-in that epoch's own key namespace, where no reader looks. The fence is what
-keeps a retired grant out of use; deleting the old keys is hygiene on top.
-
-The operator's `POST /ui/oauth/<id>` takes a `mode` query parameter:
-
-| Request | What it does |
-| --- | --- |
-| `POST /ui/oauth/<id>` or `?mode=restart` | `startAuth(ctx, { force: true })`: a new epoch, with tokens, discovery, and any pending flow wiped. A dynamically registered client may be carried into it ([below](#human-authentication-management)); one that is not carried is registered again. |
-| `?mode=continue` | `startAuth(ctx, { force: false })`: hand back the pending authorization URL if it was written in the last ten minutes and still names the stored client; otherwise start a flow in the current epoch, reusing the stored client registration. A disconnected connector still gets its new epoch first. |
-| `DELETE /ui/oauth/<id>` | Disconnect: a disconnected epoch that passive reads never turn back into a consent flow. |
-
-Any other `mode`, or more than one, is a 400 before anything starts; the
-management permission, visibility, and principal checks are the same for
-both modes, and a personal connector continues only the caller's own flow.
-A 200 answers `{ state, authorizationUrl?, reused? }`, with `reused` present
-beside every URL: `true` when an earlier start's URL came back unchanged. A
-continue that reused a URL or found the connection healthy changed nothing,
-so it leaves the cached catalog alone; every other start invalidates it. The
-ten minutes are `PENDING_AUTHORIZATION_MAX_AGE_MS`. Connecta never expires
-its own half of a URL, but authorization servers expire theirs, and a fresh
-start that keeps the registration costs one authorization request. A URL
-stored without a write time — by an earlier release, or by a connector never
-reset since epochs arrived — is stale by definition. `authorize_connector`
-without `force` follows the same rule.
-
-Continue trusts the stored registration, which carries the `redirect_uris`
-it was registered with. After a `publicUrl` change the authorization server
-refuses that client's new callback at consent. Restart registers a client
-for the current URL and recovers.
-
-A restart cannot know which retired epochs a late write reached, so it
-publishes a **cleanup lineage** under the new epoch before activating it:
-the retired epochs, as the same plain list of names every release reads, and
-beside it a record of when each retired. A published lineage is never
-rewritten. A stale writer whose own cleanup fails appends to the live
-lineage, and a restart that rewrote the list it had read could drop that
-append. An epoch leaves the lineage only by being left out of its
-successor's.
-
-A restart does the same storage work however many came before it. After the
-fence it deletes the one epoch it retired: six values, then that epoch's own
-lineage records. An epoch's manifest outlives its values only when their
-deletion failed, so the restart also reads the manifests of the eight most
-recently retired epochs (`RETRY_PROBES`) and cleans up again any that still
-have one. A Disconnect or Restart that reported a failed cleanup therefore
-deletes the old grant when the operator retries it. Before publishing, it
-sweeps up to 16 epochs retired more than `CLEANUP_GRACE_MS` (24 hours) ago,
-oldest first, and leaves out only those whose values and records were all
-deleted. A failed sweep is carried and tried again later, and never fails
-the restart. Any other epoch inside its grace is not deleted again. A late write into it is unreadable behind the fence,
-and the late writer deletes it itself. If that delete fails, the writer
-records the epoch again as retired at that moment, appending it or, when it
-is already listed, moving only its time. A restart that swept it re-reads the
-lineage before publishing and keeps it. Whatever remains is swept once the
-grace has passed. Two such writers racing can lose one time update, which
-leaves the earlier time; a time missing altogether reads as retired at the
-moment of the restart that reads it, which only lengthens a grace.
-
-**The assumption:** no request holds a retired epoch for a day. The writers
-that can land late are OAuth flows, refreshes, and readers whose Workers KV
-replica still serves the old generation for a minute or more; none of them
-run that long. If it fails, only a writer that dies between its write and
-its own cleanup leaves residue no restart tracks, and that residue is never
-readable.
-
-The lineage holds at most 5,000 epochs, the ones retired within the last day
-plus any the sweep has not reached. A restart that would exceed that is
-refused before the fence moves, which takes more than 4,000 restarts of one
-connector in a day on top of the 1,000 an earlier release allowed. A
-connector that reached that release's 1,000 wall restarts again the day it
-upgrades, and its old entries drain 16 per restart a day later. An older
-release ignores the times, so a rollback still restarts unless a lineage has
-grown past its own 1,000 cap. Deletes run six at a time, the Workers limit
-on simultaneous connections, and catalog invalidation deletes its chunks
-concurrently under the registry's chunk I/O bound.
+Each owner of an OAuth connector (the deployment when shared, each principal
+when personal) has one **grant record**, `oauth:grant` in the connector's
+namespace: the live **epoch**, the latest consent's state digest, and one
+authorization server's client registration, tokens, and discovery. Each
+consent has a **flow record**, `oauth:flow:<sha256(state)>`, holding its
+epoch, consent URL, and PKCE verifier for fifteen minutes; the state itself is
+stored nowhere. Keys come from `src/storage/keys.ts`.
+
+With a vault, the grant's body and each verifier are sealed with its AES-GCM
+key, the additional authenticated data naming the connector, owner partition,
+record, and epoch, so ciphertext moved to another connector, principal,
+record, or epoch does not open. Anything that fails to open (tampered, or
+under a rotated key) reads as absent: `auth_required` and a logged warning.
+The epoch, consent URL, and state digest stay plaintext and authenticate
+nothing. A plaintext body written before the vault could seal is sealed where
+it lies on first read, by compare-and-set. An [`api()` OAuth
+connector](#downstream-oauth-on-api) stores no client. A vault without the
+optional `seal`/`open` members keeps the body plaintext with a startup
+warning; no vault, plaintext as always.
+
+**From 0.28 (layout 2).** The first read of an owner's grant that finds no
+record reads layout 2 once: the active generation's issuer-stamped client,
+tokens, and discovery (sealed values open under their old keys), kept only
+when every credential carries a stamp and the stamps agree with each other
+and with discovery. It writes them as the grant record by compare-and-set,
+then deletes every layout-2 key, cleanup lineage included. A disconnected
+connector stays disconnected; a cancelled request migrates nothing. Grants
+from before issuer binding (v0.8.1 and earlier) and pending consents are not
+carried, so those connectors need Connect again. Rolling back past this
+release finds no layout-2 grant and needs consent.
+
+## Starting, restarting, and disconnecting
+
+Every grant write (registration, discovery, tokens, a refresh, a consent's
+pointer, an invalidation) reads the record and replaces it by compare-and-set
+against exactly what it read, so no write overwrites one it did not see.
+Every flow (a connect attempt, an `api()` call or start, a callback) binds to
+the epoch it began in. Once another epoch is live its reads fail, its writes
+land nowhere, and it fails retryable `unavailable`: "authorization changed
+while this request was in flight; try again". Restart and Disconnect replace
+the epoch, and the grant with it, in one compare-and-set, so no older
+namespace is left to clean up. They then delete each consent whose epoch is no
+longer live; one left behind cannot complete and expires with its link.
+`POST /ui/oauth/<id>` takes a `mode`:
+
+| Request                                  | What it does                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
+| ---------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| `POST /ui/oauth/<id>` or `?mode=restart` | Issues a signed `/connect/<id>` link requesting a fresh epoch. No downstream authorization starts until the verified browser visits it.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
+| `?mode=continue`                         | Issues a signed `/connect/<id>` link requesting continuation. At the browser visit, a recent pending consent can be reused; otherwise authorization begins in the current epoch.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          |
+| `GET /connect/<id>?h=...`                | Verifies the signed handoff and, when signed in, browser identity, connector visibility and management permission. With the UI mounted, hands off to `/connectors/<id>?h=...#auth` without consuming the link or starting OAuth; Clerk sign-in uses that shell. The Auth tab continues with `start=1`, which repeats verification, consumes the link and calls `startAuth`. Without the UI, the original browser visit starts consent. Explicit `POST /ui/oauth/<id>` actions return a signed link with `start=1` when the UI is mounted. |
+| `DELETE /ui/oauth/<id>`                  | Disconnects and invalidates the cached catalog, even if the browser leaves.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               |
+
+`authorize_connector` issues the same browser link, with `force` carried in the
+signed handoff. On hosts without URL elicitation, direct and program auth
+failures and search/describe catalog failures include the same authorization
+handoff. The admitted registry and management permission govern issuance.
+Each call or program run shares at most one handoff per connector; errors never
+request a forced restart. Signed links retain their fifteen-minute expiry,
+initiating-user and owner binding, origin check, and single-use browser nonce.
+Minting a link stores no nonce and starts no consent. When an auth error includes
+a handoff, give it to the user or operator. Status reads never call `startAuth` and never expose the
+provider's consent URL. A UI start answers `{ state: "auth_required",
+authorizationUrl }`, where the URL belongs to connecta. Continue hands back the
+latest consent only while it is unclaimed, in the live epoch, written within
+ten minutes, and names the grant's client. The cached catalog stays only when
+an unforced browser visit reuses that consent or finds the connection
+healthy. Restart invalidates it even if the connection ends healthy. Continue
+trusts the stored registration's `redirect_uris`; after changing `publicUrl`,
+Restart registers for the current callback URL.
+
+### Consents and callbacks
+
+A start stores its flow record, then the grant's pointer to it. A reset that
+replaced the epoch in between fails the start and removes the record, so no
+start hands out a consent its callback could not complete. The callback finds
+its consent by the state's digest, one read whether or not it exists. The
+exchange then:
+
+1. binds to the consent's epoch and its issuer, client ID, token endpoint, and
+   discovery digest, noting the client and tokens the grant holds. A supplied
+   RFC 9207 `iss` must equal the consent's issuer;
+2. after every read it depends on, claims the consent by compare-and-set from
+   the exact record found to a claimed one keeping neither URL nor verifier.
+   Of duplicate callbacks exactly one wins; the rest send nothing and get the
+   flat 400 for an already-used link;
+3. after the claim, opens the current grant and checks its issuer, client ID,
+   token endpoint, and discovery against the consent. It re-reads that exact
+   record after opening ciphertext and sends the code in the reaction to that
+   read. Changing issuers advances the epoch as well. A
+   reset published before the read fails the callback with nothing sent. One
+   published while the request is leaving cannot be ordered before the send
+   without a lock across requests; the grant's compare-and-set refuses its
+   tokens, which costs one more consent.
+
+The claim is spent whatever the exchange's outcome. The SDK's one retry after
+a refused code receives that refusal and sends nothing. A refused code
+invalidates the client or tokens only as step 1 found them, never what another
+flow wrote meanwhile. Consumption is recorded on that consent alone, so a
+delayed duplicate never deletes or invalidates a newer consent Continue
+published. An exchange no callback verified claims only the consent its
+callback's `state` names: programmatic `finishAuth`, or a PKCE-less `api()`
+exchange. Both built-in `finishAuth` adapters require `callbackParams` with a
+nonempty `state`, even with PKCE disabled or after a separate `verifyState` call.
+A missing state is refused before discovery, registration, or token dispatch.
+
+Layout-2 migration commits `cleanupPending` in the new grant before deleting
+historical keys. Every later grant read retries deletion, then clears the
+marker by CAS only when deletion succeeds. Restart preserves this obligation.
+Disconnect commits a tombstone with the marker and always removes historical
+keys for the connector and owner, including when a modern grant already exists.
+A crash during cleanup cannot restore the disconnected grant.
+
+Disconnect first removes the grant and fences its epoch with CAS. When that
+removed grant's saved authorization-server metadata advertises a revocation
+endpoint, Connecta makes one RFC 7009 request using that same issuer and client.
+It revokes the refresh token when present, otherwise the access token. It never
+rediscovers an issuer or sends credentials to a replacement server on Disconnect.
+The endpoint must use HTTPS, with HTTP allowed only for the existing loopback
+development exception. Trusting a configured HTTP MCP origin does not permit
+plaintext public revocation. The advertised-URL destination guard also applies,
+and revocation never follows redirects. The request has its own twenty-second deadline; browser
+cancellation cannot undo local removal. It reads no provider response text.
+
+A revocation refusal, timeout, network failure, or unsafe advertised destination
+leaves the local grant removed. The management route returns HTTP 200 with
+`{ state: "auth_required", code: "oauth_revocation_failed" }` and logs that typed
+code. Revoke the old grant in the provider's console if removal there matters.
+With no advertised endpoint, Disconnect makes no request. Repeating Disconnect
+never retries revocation, because the removed grant is no longer available.
+Restart makes no revocation request. Static `api()` OAuth has no discovered
+revocation endpoint and continues to remove authorization locally.
 
 ## Refresh failures
 
-A failed token refresh means one of two things, and connecta decides which
-from the token endpoint's answer, not the SDK's reading of it. A **dead grant**
-is any 4xx except 408, 425, and 429, or a 2xx carrying an OAuth `error` (GitHub
-answers `200 {"error":"bad_refresh_token"}`). It ends as `auth_required`, and
-the refused tokens are deleted on the spot, so no later request or isolate
-sends them again and the next `authorize_connector` goes straight to consent.
-An **outage** is a 5xx, 408, 425, 429, a network failure, or a 2xx that is not
-a token response. It ends as retryable `unavailable`, or `rate_limited` for a
-429, with `retryAfterMs` when the server sent `Retry-After`. The grant is kept,
-and a passive call writes no consent URL. Every request joined on the same
-in-flight refresh gets the same verdict, even when the request that sent the
-refresh is cancelled after the answer arrives: the refused tokens are deleted
-before anyone waiting is released, so a request arriving meanwhile joins the
-refusal instead of sending the dead token again.
-
-The SDK needs this help. On a refresh failure it cannot parse, or one marked
-`server_error`, it falls through to starting authorization, which reports a
-healthy grant as needing consent. It rethrows every other OAuth error
-untouched, which reports a dead grant as a generic outage and keeps re-sending
-it. So the refresh coordinator hands the SDK an answer it classifies correctly,
-and the provider hooks it calls next finish the job. The pinned SDK behavior is
-spelled out beside `refreshResponseOutcome`. An explicit authorization during
-an outage still falls through to consent, since that is what it asked for.
+A refresh token is spent when dispatch begins. Every refresh request passes
+through `KvOAuthProvider.dispatchRefresh`. Before sending, the gate wins the
+lease's `claimed` to `dispatched` CAS and a separate fingerprint CAS at
+`oauth:refresh-spent:<sha256(refresh_token)>`. The latter must succeed before
+any HTTP request leaves. Connector and owner storage namespaces partition both
+records. Spent records have **no TTL**, contain no token, and are never deleted
+by completion, failure, migration cleanup, Restart, Disconnect, or epoch sweeps.
+Copy these durable records during storage migration.
+
+Each fingerprint record names its dispatch epoch, holder, and resolution state:
+
+| State         | Send gate                                                                                                                                                                                                   |
+| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| `outstanding` | Dispatched without a definitive outcome yet. Refuse the fingerprint in every epoch.                                                                                                                         |
+| `ambiguous`   | The sent request's outcome is unknowable. Refuse the fingerprint in every epoch, including when re-consent returns it again.                                                                                |
+| `resolved`    | The tokens were committed or a definitive failure was recorded. Refuse another send in the same epoch. A later epoch may send once only when its code exchange completed after the resolution was recorded. |
+
+Resolution writes use CAS against the exact outstanding record and record a
+`resolvedAt` timestamp with a resolved outcome. When accepting a code response,
+the coordinator reads the returned refresh token's fingerprint record. Consent
+stores the exact resolved record it observed with the grant's tokens. That
+receipt proves resolution preceded consent completion without comparing
+isolate clocks. A delayed SDK save cannot acquire a newer receipt. The send
+CAS compares against that same resolved record and replaces it with the new
+outstanding dispatch. An earlier consent cannot become eligible merely because
+the pending refresh later resolves. Competing epochs cannot both replace the
+same record, and a late answer cannot turn an ambiguous record into resolved.
+
+An ambiguous token stays blocked even if re-consent returns identical bytes.
+Recovery requires re-consent that yields a different refresh token, or
+revocation at the provider. Restart never deletes spent records or moves old
+credentials into a new epoch.
+
+Credential-bearing token-endpoint requests never follow redirects, regardless
+of `remoteMcp()`'s `redirects` setting. The send gate uses `redirect: "manual"`
+and bypasses the resource redirect wrapper for refresh, authorization-code,
+and client-credentials grants and token revocation. Static `api()` OAuth uses
+the same gate and manual fetch. Any 3xx is a definitive failure, even if its
+body contains tokens. Fetch has already sent the request body; a refresh
+fingerprint is resolved as a definitive failure and the grant requires re-consent. A
+redirected code exchange is refused and its SDK retry cannot resend the code.
+
+| Outcome after dispatch                                                                           | Result                                                                                                                                                                                                                       |
+| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| Valid tokens durably committed                                                                   | Mark the fingerprint resolved and release waiters with committed tokens. Within the epoch only a new fingerprint can be dispatched next.                                                                                     |
+| Definitive provider failure                                                                      | `auth_required`. Mark the fingerprint resolved and conditionally remove its grant tokens. Includes every 3xx without following it and complete failures such as 5xx, 408, 425, and 429.                                      |
+| Network or response-body loss, malformed or oversized success, deadline expiry, or process crash | `auth_required`. Mark the fingerprint ambiguous and conditionally remove its grant tokens. Identical-token re-consent cannot reopen it.                                                                                      |
+| Valid rotation whose grant commit retries are exhausted                                          | `auth_required`. Record the definitive commit failure as resolved and conditionally remove its grant tokens. Never return uncommitted tokens to the SDK.                                                                     |
+| Epoch changed during commit                                                                      | Drop the response tokens and record the definitive failure as resolved. Restart, Disconnect, or issuer replacement determines the newer grant. A consent that completed before this resolution cannot reuse its fingerprint. |
+
+Refreshes coalesce per owner and epoch within a runtime. Across isolates, a
+shared-storage record at `oauth:refresh:<epoch>:<sha256(refresh_token)>` is
+claimed by CAS before dispatch. Only an expired unsent claim can be taken
+over. Its old holder loses the dispatch CAS. A dispatched record cannot be
+reopened by a completed answer, a verdict, or a newcomer read.
+
+The separate holder record at `oauth:refresh-active:<epoch>:<holder>` has a
+storage-owned 120-second TTL. SQLite and D1 create and check expiry with the
+database clock inside each statement. Custom shared stores must also use a
+storage-owned clock. Cross-isolate clock comparisons never permit takeover of
+a dispatched record. The refresh HTTP request and response body have a
+20-second deadline. Contenders wait at most 35 seconds with 10 ms to 250 ms
+backoff. A waiter deadline returns retryable `unavailable`, keeps the grant,
+and starts no consent. It never permits resending a spent token.
+
+One preparation deadline covers initial epoch and grant reads, claim acquisition,
+dispatch preparation, and local joiners waiting for a grant commit. Cancellation
+before sending settles the local flight without awaiting cleanup storage. An
+unsent claim can expire and be taken over. Late preparation never sends. If
+preparation recorded the fingerprint as spent, it stays spent even if the send
+was subsequently cancelled or a local destination guard refused it.
+
+After dispatch, caller and SDK cancellation end only that caller's wait. The
+exchange and grant commit continue under the HTTP deadline. The runtime passes
+completion to Workers `waitUntil`; paths without that hook keep a background
+promise. The holder re-reads the grant and retries the commit with its in-memory
+response tokens up to 32 times after CAS contention or storage errors. Each
+attempt checks the epoch, issuer, and current refresh token. A changed epoch
+drops the response tokens. Another consent's credentials remain intact. A lost
+commit answer can be recovered by reading the committed grant. Exhausting the
+commit retries requires re-consent.
+
+Lease release uses CAS after the commit or re-consent decision. Completion
+records include a SHA-256 digest of the committed token response, excluding
+the local issuer stamp. Waiters can adopt that committed response even when
+it kept the refresh token or was byte-identical. A newcomer cannot clear the
+completion record to redeem that fingerprint again. Verdict records contain
+fixed typed facts, without tokens or downstream text.
+
+If a dispatched holder crashes, shared-storage liveness expiry records
+re-consent and conditionally removes its grant tokens. A late response cannot
+restore them. Spent records already prohibit replay, including when refusal
+recording or token cleanup fails. Restart and Disconnect sweep obsolete lease
+records while retaining every spent record. Holder liveness remains until
+completion or storage-owned TTL expiry, so reset cannot turn a live request
+into an ambiguous one. The SDK receives
+sanitized failure responses, and provider hooks preserve the re-consent verdict
+for passive calls. A source-level guard pins both OAuth adapters to this single
+send gate, manual token fetches, and a separate resource redirect path.
+Connector status reports `auth_required`; agent calls report
+`downstream_oauth_required` with the authorization recovery action. A 403
+during a dispatched refresh also requires re-consent because its fingerprint
+is already spent. Provider permission denials on other calls retain their
+`provider_permission_denied` recovery.
+
+Refresh and failed code-exchange answers are rebuilt from the OAuth `error`
+code alone with fixed text. The SDK logs descriptions below the configured
+logger; downstream descriptions and storage errors can quote tokens, client
+secrets, or codes and must not reach that output.
+
+## What a server's errors may say
+
+No authorization, token, registration, or discovery server's text reaches an
+agent: it can echo the request or plant words for an agent. No server's text
+reaches a log, status message, or activity row at all
+([records](./architecture.md#errors-and-records)). A failed
+OAuth flow names its step, the host of that flow's own last request (each flow
+keeps its own, so concurrent calls never borrow one), and for a refused
+registration the status and a registered OAuth `error` code. Google's delegated
+token endpoint gets the same treatment. At the MCP handshake, `tools/list`, and
+`tools/call`, an error keeps its text only if it is the downstream's JSON-RPC
+error answer, the endpoint's HTTP 4xx refusal, or the request's own abort reason
+(checked first, by identity or as the SDK rewraps it). Anything else, a parser's,
+validator's, runtime's, or non-4xx body's account included, becomes the step,
+host, HTTP status if any, and error class. An `api()` handler's failure other
+than a `ConnectorCallError` names its tool and class, and an argument mismatch
+is told from the reviewed findings, never the validator's sentence. Every
+withheld error keeps its original classification, and no connector error keeps
+a runtime, stream, or parser error as `cause`.
+
+The JSON-RPC and 4xx exception preserves diagnostics agents need to correct
+their arguments. Core redacts credentials and submitted `writeOnly` argument values before these
+messages, nested causes/data, or tool results reach an agent or guest program.
+The memory-only set covers credential-slot values, static auth headers,
+outbound bearer tokens, and their JSON-escaped, URL-encoded, base64 and
+base64url forms. Final outgoing requests register Authorization,
+Proxy-Authorization, Cookie, and headers or query parameters whose names
+contain `key`, `token`, `secret`, `auth`, `signature`, or `session`. Custom
+`api()` handlers use `ctx.fetch` for this tracking; `ctx.oauth.fetch` and
+maintained-provider transports track the final request too. Credential-slot
+reads cover values sent in headers, queries, or bodies. Echoed sensitive
+header lines are also withheld.
+
+Submitted values under JSON Schema `writeOnly: true` join this memory-only
+request set, including nested objects, arrays, and local references. Strings
+and numbers register with the same raw, URL, form, base64, and base64url forms
+as credentials; booleans and null carry no text. Property names inside a
+private object subtree are private values too; array indices are not. Output
+redaction protects the union of private fields across `oneOf`/`anyOf`
+alternatives. If a schema declares private fields but its sensitivity cannot
+be resolved, all submitted values are treated as private. Schemas without a
+`writeOnly` annotation skip this work. Private values never enter stored
+catalogs or operator records. The program's outgoing-argument filter and
+catalog caches use credentials alone, so later calls receive the original
+submitted data and cached catalogs never depend on one request's arguments.
+
+Payload rules apply where downstream or guest data enters: downstream results
+and errors, resource reads, connector usage guides and downstream skill files,
+program returns, logs, and emits, and relayed input prompts. JSON objects,
+arrays, and string literals are parsed and walked, whether they are wire text
+or a string inside a result, so nested JSON strings are decoded too. Every
+decoded string leaf and property name is scanned, and a number, boolean, or
+null whose canonical text matches becomes the string `[redacted]`, so the JSON
+stays valid. Text is reserialized
+only when something changed; otherwise its original bytes remain. The
+serialized bytes are then scanned raw, and a literal the walk cannot see, such
+as one spanning tokens, withholds the whole text. Other text is scanned raw and
+through one more layer of JSON string escapes at a time while the last layer
+could still hold an escape. A string is decoded through at most eight layers in
+total, counting the nested JSON strings it was parsed from; text that would
+need more is withheld. Every match is mapped back to the original text,
+overlapping and adjacent spans merge, and each merged span is replaced once, so
+one match can never split another. A span wholly inside an existing
+`[redacted]` placeholder is that placeholder; a private value that contains the
+placeholder text is still redacted. Connecta and MCP envelope field names, tag
+values such as a content `type` or result `format`, and typed facts such as
+`isError` and `retryable` are copied unchanged. The agent boundary around
+Connecta's own envelopes repeats credential and literal private-value
+replacement without the short-value rules, so envelope identifiers, counts, and
+JSON-RPC ids are never rewritten.
+
+Empty private strings are exempt because they contain nothing to leak. A
+non-empty private value shorter than eight characters redacts a structured
+string leaf, property name, or scalar only when it equals the value or a
+supported encoded form, including after JSON unescaping. A longer structured
+field that merely contains it, such as `prod-db` for `prod`, is kept: this
+documented tradeoff keeps identifiers and approval state usable. Prose that
+contains a short value or encoded form anywhere is withheld as `[redacted]`:
+plain-text results, `message`, `error`, `text`, `logs`, and `stack` strings,
+string program results, and relayed prompts. Typed error classification,
+retryability, retry delay, and write-outcome accounting remain. Private values
+of at least eight characters are replaced wherever they occur.
+
+Matching runs one Aho-Corasick automaton over every registered form, so each
+scanned code unit costs amortized constant work however many values are
+registered. The automaton indexes the first 256 code units of each form,
+credentials first, and at most 512 Ki indexed units for every registration
+together, so a long credential or private value costs no more automaton memory
+than its prefix. Where a longer form's prefix matches, the scanned view's
+rolling hash confirms the rest once its last unit arrives; equal text always
+confirms, so a hash collision could only redact more. Forms that share a prefix
+and a length share each confirmation, and overlapping prefix occurrences in
+self-similar text share one run of confirmations, so periodic text stays exact.
+Each confirmation is charged to the call's work budget before it is queued, and
+one scanned view holds at most 16 Ki runs; a view that needs more is withheld.
+Submitted values register at most 512 KiB of encoded forms and 4,096
+argument nodes. A form that does not fit either limit withholds every string
+at least as long as that form; an argument tree that cannot be walked withholds
+all downstream text.
+
+One redaction call has one work budget across parsing and every scanned view:
+64 Mi units with private values, and 1 Gi for credentials alone, which keeps
+multi-MiB document and skill-file reads. Work that does not fit the remaining
+budget withholds its field, so smaller identifiers can still be checked. The
+same call walks structured values iteratively, at most 512 containers deep and
+1 Mi entries in total, and copies only containers on a path that changed. A
+container's entries are counted before it is walked. One that does not fit the
+remaining entries is scanned as serialized text instead: kept unchanged when
+nothing registered appears, otherwise withheld. A cycle or a container past the
+depth limit is withheld. No limit throws or exposes a matcher diagnostic, and
+typed success outcomes remain.
+
+Only credentials of at least eight characters enter the redaction and structural
+matchers. Credentials shorter than 8 characters are not redacted from echoes;
+use longer secrets. Matching short secrets can corrupt JSON-RPC fields or refuse
+legitimate OAuth metadata. A configured static secret or Basic password below
+this floor produces one operator warning per connector with the typed code
+`short_secret_not_redacted` and no credential value. Remote connectors warn at
+construction; static `api()` OAuth warns on its first provider operation.
+Connecta's own messages never quote credential values, regardless of length.
+One automaton is cached until the secret set changes, and an empty set skips matching. Redaction runs after
+JSON unwrapping or joining text blocks and on final serialized text and every
+structured string, before result paging, emits, and program outputs/errors/logs. See
+[the agent boundary](./architecture.md#errors-and-records).
 
 ## URLs a downstream advertises
 
-A `remoteMcp()` OAuth connector learns most of the URLs it fetches from the
-downstream itself: the `resource_metadata` in its 401 challenge, the
-`authorization_servers` in that metadata, and the token and registration
-endpoints the authorization server publishes. Connecta fetches every one of
-them server-side, so a compromised downstream could otherwise aim a Node or
-Docker host at its own network — cloud metadata at `169.254.169.254`, an admin
-panel on the LAN. Config is the security model, so the rule splits on it:
+`remoteMcp()` learns server-side fetch URLs from a 401's `resource_metadata`,
+its `authorization_servers`, and advertised token and registration endpoints.
+To prevent a downstream from targeting the host's private network:
 
-- A URL on the connector's configured origin is trusted. The operator wrote it
-  down.
+- A URL on the connector's configured origin is trusted; the operator wrote it.
 - Any other URL must be `https` and must not name a private host: `localhost`
   and `*.localhost`, `127/8`, `10/8`, `172.16/12`, `192.168/16`, `169.254/16`,
   `100.64/10`, `0/8`, `::`, `::1`, `fc00::/7`, `fe80::/10`, or an IPv4-mapped
@@ -444,39 +724,75 @@ panel on the LAN. Config is the security model, so the rule splits on it:
   working. LAN and link-local addresses stay refused.
 
 A refused URL is never requested. Discovery, registration, and code exchange
-fail with a non-retryable `connector_call_failed` that names the host and
-nothing else from the URL. A refused refresh never reaches the token endpoint,
-so there is no verdict to act on: the grant is kept, and the SDK falls through
-to consent as it does for any refresh it could not complete. Redirects cannot
-route around the rule, because the redirect policy only follows same-origin
-hops.
-
-The check is syntactic. It reads the host after the WHATWG URL parser has
-folded `2130706433` and `0x7f.1` into `127.0.0.1`, and it never resolves a
-name, because the Workers-safe core has no DNS. A public name that resolves to
-a private address, or rebinds to one after the check, is out of scope; a host
-that must stop that runs connecta behind an egress policy that does.
+fail with a non-retryable `connector_call_failed` naming the host and nothing
+else from the URL. A refused refresh never reaches the token endpoint. If the
+send gate already recorded its fingerprint, that fingerprint remains blocked
+and the grant requires re-consent. Redirects cannot route around the
+rule; token requests never follow them, and resource redirects follow only
+same-origin hops.
+
+The check is syntactic: it reads the host after the WHATWG URL parser folds
+`2130706433` and `0x7f.1` into `127.0.0.1`, and never resolves a name — the
+Workers-safe core has no DNS. A public name resolving or rebinding to a private
+address is out of scope; a host that must stop that needs an egress policy.
+
+Downstream advertisements choose consent destinations, never destinations for
+existing grants. Tokens and registered clients bind to their issuing server;
+cached discovery sends refresh there despite changed advertisements. Fresh
+discovery naming another issuer replaces the grant's body (see [one server per
+grant](#one-server-per-grant)), so it receives no existing credentials and
+registers and consents anew. The SDK
+also refuses [GHSA-6qxp-vccf-f47h](https://github.com/advisories/GHSA-6qxp-vccf-f47h)
+since client 2.2.0. New consent still follows the downstream's URL; the human
+must read it before approving.
+
+Grants from before issuer binding (v0.8.1 and earlier) have no stamp and are
+not migrated (see [state at rest](#downstream-oauth-state-at-rest)).
+
+### One server per grant
+
+A grant record names one authorization server, its `issuer`. Saving
+discovery, a client, or tokens for another server replaces the body, and an
+issuer-aware read hands a value only to the server that issued it. The SDK
+discovers afresh only without cached discovery, after a forced restart's
+carried client for example; a different server found there is handed nothing
+and registers anew. Nothing is decided at flow entry and no hook retires
+anything, so SDK hook order cannot mix servers or cross a reset.
 
 ## Management permissions
 
-Visibility alone grants no authentication-management permission. Two independent
-resolvers take `Readonly<AuthenticatedIdentity>`, return `"all"`, `"none"`, or
-declared connector ids, and both default to `"none"`:
-`credentialAdministration` for shared credentials and shared OAuth grants, and
-`personalConnection` for a human's own grants on personal connectors. Each action
-needs visibility *and* the relevant permission; both resolvers run only for an
-interactive identity; personal actions additionally need a stable namespaced
-principal and always use that principal's partition. Resolver exceptions and
-unknown ids fail closed, and permissions come from authenticated identity, never
-from caller input.
+Visibility grants no authentication-management permission. Two resolvers take
+`Readonly<AuthenticatedIdentity>` and return `"all"`, `"none"` (the default),
+or connector ids: `credentialAdministration` for shared credentials and OAuth
+grants, `personalConnection` for a human's own grants on personal connectors.
+Each action needs visibility _and_ the permission; both run only for an
+interactive identity, and personal actions also need a stable namespaced
+principal, whose partition they always use. Exceptions and unknown ids fail
+closed; permissions come from authenticated identity, never caller input.
 
 `identity.activityAccess` takes `Readonly<IdentityReference>` — `id` and
-`namespace` — and controls reading global activity. Undeclared, it admits every
+`namespace` — and controls reading activity. When configured, an authenticated
+principal may pass it without an interactive session. This includes a `cta_`
+token's stored principal and a non-interactive API principal; subject-only
+callers and anonymous requests cannot qualify. The optional activity `readGate`
+also applies. Reads remain GET-only and filter connector/tool grants, personal
+ownership and recorded pool access before any actor-label lookup. Personal rows
+use the admitted principal in the existing typed actor id and namespace fields;
+rows without a provable owner are withheld. Non-interactive
+reads return typed actors without directory labels. Old rows without a pool
+remain subject to connector, tool and owner checks. Undeclared, it admits every
 interactive human, the one default here that is open, because a single-operator
 deployment would otherwise be locked out of its own event stream. Team
 deployments should set it. There is no general administrator role and no
 implicit token-management authority. `identity.accessTokenManagement` is a separate boolean permission, false by default, evaluated only for interactive humans. Lifecycle routes also require a stable principal.
 
+Personal activity rows must carry the checked `principal` actor basis as well as
+a matching principal ID and namespace. Legacy subject actors cannot prove
+personal ownership and are withheld. Activity pagination advances past hidden
+boundary rows so their timestamp and event ID never appear in a returned cursor.
+Each read belongs to the request fiber. A scan exceeding 1,000 additional
+boundary reads returns 503 without a cursor; cancellation starts no further read.
+
 ```ts
 createConnecta({
   auth: cloudflareAccessAuth(),
@@ -492,42 +808,36 @@ createConnecta({
     personalConnection: () => ["personal_linear"],
     activityAccess: ({ id }) => id === "owner-id",
   },
-  connectors,
-  executor,
+  connectors, executor,
 });
 ```
 
 ## Cloudflare Access on Workers
 
 [`cloudflareAccessAuth()`](https://developers.cloudflare.com/workers/configuration/cloudflare-access/)
-is the Worker-specific path. `ethos.md` records it as **provisional**: Managed
-OAuth and the Clerk migration still want production evidence
-([#506](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/issues/506)).
+is the supported Worker-specific path under
+[#703](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/issues/703). Node uses Clerk;
+Access trusts the identity validated at the Worker edge.
 
 ```ts
-import { cloudflareAccessAuth } from
-  "@zackbart/connecta/auth/cloudflare-access";
-
+import { cloudflareAccessAuth } from "@zackbart/connecta/auth/cloudflare-access";
 createConnecta({ auth: cloudflareAccessAuth(), connectors, executor });
 ```
 
-The adapter trusts only `ctx.access`, which Cloudflare creates after Access has
-authenticated a request that directly invokes the Worker, and it reads identity
-through `ctx.access.getIdentity()`. A human yields `user_uuid` or `email` as both
-user and subject. A *service* identity yields `service_token_id`, or failing that
-`common_name`, so distinct service tokens normally get distinct attribution;
-either identity kind with no usable id is a 403. Only when Access returns no
-identity at all does the adapter fall back to the Access application audience as
-the subject — that, and only that, is the case where tokens on one application
-share attribution. It never reads `Cf-Access-Jwt-Assertion`, downloads signing
-keys, or accepts a JWT from the caller, and a missing context or throwing lookup
-fails closed. It is therefore deliberately not a Node or `cloudflared` origin
-adapter and does not survive a Service Binding hop; those shapes need their own
-trust boundary.
-
-Access decides admission and identity; connecta configuration decides connector
-access and management permissions. An Access service identity, having no human
-principal, cannot mutate connection auth at all.
+The adapter trusts only `ctx.access`, which Cloudflare attaches after validating
+the token against the Worker-level Access application's AUD. A nonempty trusted
+`ctx.access.aud` is required; a caller cannot supply this context through HTTP.
+`ctx.access.getIdentity()` supplies `user_uuid`, with `email` as fallback, in the
+stable `cloudflare-access` principal namespace. Missing identity, service
+identity, or unusable user ids refuse. Access service credentials can admit the
+request at the edge, but connecta requires a `cta_` token for machine identity.
+
+It never reads `Cf-Access-Jwt-Assertion`, fetches signing keys, or accepts a
+caller's JWT. Missing context or a throwing lookup fails closed on both
+runtimes. It does not support Node, a `cloudflared` origin, or a Service Binding
+hop. [Decision 0003](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/decisions/0003-inbound-auth.md) records that boundary
+and replaces #506's provisional verdict with supported Worker Access.
+Connecta configuration still decides connector and management permissions.
 
 Protect the Worker with a Worker-level Access application whose destination is
 `{ "type": "worker", "worker_id": "<the Worker script tag>" }`. A traditional
@@ -545,126 +855,332 @@ https://chatgpt.com/connector_platform_oauth_redirect
 https://chatgpt.com/connector/oauth/*
 ```
 
-Cloudflare exposes that list as
-`oauth_configuration.dynamic_client_registration.allowed_uris`, on the Managed
-OAuth settings rather than the Access policy that picks admitted identities.
-Claude uses the first value; ChatGPT uses its stable callback or a callback-id
-path covered by the third. For any other client add that exact URI or the
-narrowest wildcard covering it, never the client's whole origin. Missing entries
-let discovery succeed and registration fail later, which looks like a broken MCP
-server rather than a console setting.
+That list is `oauth_configuration.dynamic_client_registration.allowed_uris`, on
+the Managed OAuth settings, not the Access policy that picks identities. Claude
+uses the first; ChatGPT its stable callback or a callback-id path the third
+covers. For another client add its exact URI or the narrowest wildcard covering
+it, never its whole origin. A missing entry lets discovery succeed and
+registration fail later, which looks like a broken MCP server, not a setting.
 
 Do not add a bypass for the discovery routes; a fully automated client uses a
 [service token](https://developers.cloudflare.com/cloudflare-one/access-controls/service-credentials/service-tokens/)
 through `CF-Access-Client-Id` and `CF-Access-Client-Secret` instead. Worker-level
 Access runs before every connecta route, so `/health`, operator pages, downstream
 OAuth callbacks, and `/mcp` all require Access unless a more-specific policy says
-otherwise, and a static connecta bearer is not a standalone edge credential
+otherwise, and a `cta_` token is not a standalone edge credential
 because Cloudflare rejects the request before connecta sees it. Custom public
 webhooks live outside connecta and need their own Access routing policy. The
 [Worker example](../examples/worker/) carries the whole deployment shape.
 
+## Clerk OAuth tokens and operator sessions
+
+On `/mcp` and `/mcp/<pool>`, `clerkAuth` requires resource-bound Clerk OAuth
+tokens by default, both JWT and opaque. Verified `aud` or `resource` must
+contain the endpoint's exact canonical URL from protected-resource metadata.
+If both claims are present, both must match. Trailing slashes, case, queries,
+and fragments are not normalized. `/mcp` and `/mcp/support` are distinct
+resources. Set `publicUrl` behind an internal origin.
+
+```ts
+clerkAuth({ publishableKey, secretKey,
+  publicUrl: "https://connecta.example.com" });
+```
+
+### Enable resource audiences in Clerk
+
+Enable `aud_claim_enabled: true` in Clerk's instance OAuth application
+settings. The [Backend API contract](https://github.com/clerk/openapi-specs/blob/f10fb179f42fc591f9d6f0221c089dd19483fd69/bapi/2026-05-12.yml)
+defines `GET` and `PATCH /v1/instance/oauth_application_settings` on
+`https://api.clerk.com`. Patch the setting and read it back to confirm.
+`oauth_jwt_access_tokens` separately selects JWT or opaque format; both work.
+
+For `/mcp`, `/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource` advertises
+`resource: "https://connecta.example.com/mcp"` and the Clerk Frontend API
+origin in `authorization_servers`. Pool metadata lives at
+`/.well-known/oauth-protected-resource/mcp/<pool>` and advertises that pool's
+exact URL. Clients fetch authorization-server metadata directly from that Clerk origin.
+Connecta serves no authorization-server metadata proxy.
+
+MCP hosts send that URL as the RFC 8707 `resource` parameter in standard OAuth
+authorization and token requests. Clerk's [Frontend API contract](https://github.com/clerk/openapi-specs/blob/f10fb179f42fc591f9d6f0221c089dd19483fd69/fapi/2026-05-12.yml)
+supports it at authorization and token exchange. Exchange and refresh retain
+the grant's resource when omitted; if supplied, it must match. Enable the
+registration methods your hosts use, such as DCR or [Client ID Metadata Documents](https://clerk.com/docs/guides/configure/auth-strategies/oauth/client-id-metadata-documents).
+Claude, ChatGPT, Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor should use their standard MCP
+OAuth flow. Bound tokens require no connecta client-ID list.
+
+When migrating, enable audience issuance, reconnect for a new resource-bound
+grant, and verify:
+
+1. The endpoint's protected-resource metadata advertises the exact public MCP
+   URL as `resource`, including any pool suffix.
+2. The host sends that `resource` at authorization and exchange. Inspect the
+   new token locally: JWT claims or Clerk's opaque-token verification response
+   from `POST /v1/oauth_applications/access_tokens/verify` must contain that URL
+   in `aud`. Keep tokens out of logs and reports.
+3. With `allowedOAuthClientIds` omitted or `[]`, MCP initialization succeeds at
+   that URL and a different endpoint's token receives `401`. Refresh preserves
+   the audience and operator sign-in works. Repeat for each host and pool.
+
+Clerk's SDK verifies both formats. Connecta reads the authenticated JWT's
+claims. SDK 3.12.0 drops opaque `aud`, so connecta makes one additional Backend
+API verification request and reads the raw response. Its subject and client
+must agree with the SDK, and it must report an unrevoked, unexpired token.
+The extra call follows request cancellation, times out after ten seconds,
+caches no token or audience, and denies admission on failure.
+
+### Explicit fallback for unbound tokens
+
+`allowedOAuthClientIds: ["your-connecta-client-id"]` admits verified tokens
+with no audience/resource claim from exact client IDs dedicated to this
+deployment. Never share these clients with another resource server. A present
+malformed or mismatched binding is rejected even for an allowlisted client.
+The list does not restrict correctly bound tokens. It applies to every pool;
+identity and pool grants still narrow access. Profile scopes do not identify a
+resource, and `scopes` remains metadata, not an admission rule.
+
+Each new DCR registration gets a new client ID and needs an operator update
+for this fallback. Hosts may cache registrations, but the list is impractical
+for standard onboarding. A CIMD client identifies the host, not the deployment
+resource. Prefer resource audiences with `allowedOAuthClientIds` omitted or `[]`.
+
+Clerk session tokens authenticate operator routes and browser OAuth callbacks
+only, with the deployment-origin `azp` check. MCP rejections retain the `401`
+Bearer challenge and endpoint `resource_metadata` URL required by
+[MCP authorization](https://modelcontextprotocol.io/specification/2026-07-28/basic/authorization#token-handling).
+Authentication logs contain fixed codes such as `oauth_binding_mismatch`,
+`oauth_client_not_allowed`, and `oauth_verification_failed`, never tokens,
+client IDs, claimed audiences, or upstream error text.
+
+Clerk 3.12 has no per-client fetch or diagnostic hook. Connecta uses a
+generated copy of that reviewed SDK with an instance-owned fetch: JWKS,
+backend API, opaque verification, and handshake responses read bytes through
+`byteReadResponse`, so workerd cannot print an upstream Content-Type during a
+native text read. SDK diagnostics use the fixed `Clerk authentication failed`
+event and checked `logFailure` records. Its authentication and resource
+serialization logic stays in the SDK; no global fetch, Response, or console is
+patched. Telemetry event and log methods are inert on this client, including
+when telemetry debug output is enabled. The optional `@clerk/backend` peer
+accepts `^3.12.0` for the JWT decoder; it does not select the bundled SDK's
+version. `gate` receives Connecta's `ClerkGateClient`, which declares
+`users.getUser` and the user identity, name, and email fields used by Connecta.
+These declarations do not import the consumer's Clerk types.
+
+[`scripts/build-clerk-sdk.mjs`](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/scripts/build-clerk-sdk.mjs) verifies the
+upstream version and source hash, applies the transport and diagnostic hooks,
+and regenerates the adapter with its license notices. `check:clerk-sdk` checks
+freshness in both verification loops. Updating the locked Clerk SDK requires a
+deliberate adapter update and the real-SDK Node and Workers auth tests.
+
 ## Clerk configuration is checked at construction
 
-`clerkAuth` reads its Frontend API origin out of `publishableKey`, so a key that
-is not `pk_test_`/`pk_live_` followed by the base64-encoded domain cannot produce
-one. That throws where `allowedDomains` throws, when `clerkAuth` is called, naming
-the option and never quoting the rejected value back — the usual way to land here
-is pasting the *secret* key into the publishable slot. A deployment that builds per
-request, as the Workers shape does, sees that same error on its first request
+`clerkAuth` reads its Frontend API origin out of `publishableKey`, so a key
+that is not `pk_test_`/`pk_live_` and a base64-encoded domain throws when
+`clerkAuth` is called, as `allowedDomains` does, naming the option without
+quoting the value — usually the _secret_ key pasted into the publishable slot.
+A per-request deployment, as on Workers, sees that error on its first request
 instead of a base64 stack on every route.
 
 ## Human authentication management
 
-An operator's OAuth Connect or Restart request gives the start and its handoff
-30 seconds. The request's abort signal and that deadline reach downstream OAuth
-fetches, including metadata discovery and dynamic registration. If the deadline
-expires, the route returns `504` with `OAuth authorization start timed out` after
-an already-started reset finishes. Storage has no cancellation contract: its
-generation write must drain before a response, or it could publish an old epoch
-over a newer flow. Catalog invalidation and connector scope close also finish
-outside the deadline. Those storage and cleanup waits can extend the click past
-30 seconds; the bound is on downstream work, where a hung authorization server
-was the failure. The OAuth provider checks its signal before writing and removes
-a cancelled value write that finishes late. An operator Disconnect keeps its
-existing commit-through behavior even if the browser leaves.
-
-Restart retains a dynamically registered client only when its stored issuer and
-the connector's URL, redirect URI, client metadata, auth scope, transport settings,
-and owner partition still match. It drops the grant and one-shot flow state,
-selects the authorization server again, and re-seals the retained client under
-the replacement epoch key. A different issuer registers a new client. Disconnect
-and issuer-mismatch recovery discard it. A URL-based client is never carried:
-nothing was registered, and leaving it behind lets fresh metadata decide
-whether the server still accepts one. Neither is a client whose secret has
-expired.
-
-A carried client has to earn its next carry. Building a consent URL sends the
-provider nothing, so a restart cannot learn there that a provider has purged
-the client, and RFC 6749 forbids the provider from redirecting an unknown
-client back to the callback, so nothing arrives later either. Tokens in the
-epoch are the only proof the provider still knows it. A restart that follows
-a restart with no grant in between therefore registers again: a purged
-registration costs one refused consent, not a Restart that can never recover.
-A refusal connecta does hear is handled where it lands. A start whose refresh
-draws `invalid_client` drops the client and registers in that same start; a
-callback whose code exchange draws it drops the client, and Continue will not
-hand back the URL that named it.
-
-Credential and OAuth mutation require an admitted interactive human, connector
-visibility, the appropriate shared or personal permission, and an exact
-same-origin `Origin` for browser requests. A configured MCP bearer never becomes
-a browser management credential.
-
-`authorize_connector` splits along what it would change. For a connector with a
-static credential slot it mutates nothing, so visibility is enough: with
-`ui: operatorUi()` and a vault it returns a secret-free `operator_config` handoff
-naming the credential fields and the operator URL, and without either the recovery
-is `unavailable`, since connecta does not hand back a link to a missing page. Only
-the downstream-OAuth branch consults the management permissions, and an identity
-lacking them gets `unavailable` there.
-
-Core owns the OAuth callback and verifies state and principal ownership
-independently of the optional browser application. A browser returning from
-downstream consent normally carries no MCP `Authorization` header, so an
-interactive bearer provider's 401 does not reject the callback. The verified state
-and its saved principal handoff select the owner; a browser identity, when
-present, must match that owner and may then manage the connector, while an
-interactive provider's explicit 403 still refuses the flow. See
-[meta-tools](./meta-tools.md#authorization-recovery) for the recovery shapes a
-caller actually receives.
-
-## URL-based downstream OAuth clients
-
-`remoteMcp` accepts `auth: { type: "oauth", clientMetadataUrl, scope }`.
-`clientMetadataUrl` names a public HTTPS OAuth client metadata document with a
-non-root path. It must not contain credentials or a fragment. The document
-must include its own URL as `client_id`, the deployment's exact
-`/oauth/callback/<connector-id>` in `redirect_uris`, authorization-code and
-refresh-token grants, and `token_endpoint_auth_method: "none"`. Hosting that
-public document belongs to the deployment; Connecta does not expose a public
-route through inbound authentication.
-
-The SDK uses the URL as the client ID only when the authorization server
-advertises `client_id_metadata_document_supported`. Otherwise it keeps the
-existing dynamic registration flow. State validation, PKCE, issuer binding,
-encrypted token storage, refresh, and disconnect follow the same code paths.
-The metadata URL and scopes participate in the saved-client configuration
-binding, so restarting after either changes cannot reuse an old registration.
-A restart never carries the URL-based client itself, so a server that stops
-advertising support gets a registered client on the next restart.
-
-`scope` supplies space-separated default OAuth scopes through client metadata.
-A downstream challenge or protected-resource scope declaration takes precedence,
-and the SDK adds `offline_access` when advertised for refresh-token grants.
-Omitting both settings preserves the existing discovery and registration flow.
+Auth URL elicitation uses the SDK's `createRequestStateCodec`, backed by a
+separate HKDF-derived HMAC-SHA256 key held inside `encryptedCredentialVault`.
+The ten-minute state is authenticated, not encrypted. Its secret-free payload
+binds the admitted principal, canonical endpoint including pool, connector,
+meta-tool, address, SHA-256 digest of arguments or code, round, expiry, and
+the opaque browser-link nonces issued in that flow. Entered reads also bind
+their addresses and classification digests.
+Arguments and program source never enter the payload. The absolute expiry
+survives every round. Rotation invalidates outstanding states.
+Each state admits one retry through a connector-scoped storage CAS, including
+decline and cancel. Concurrent or repeated consumption is refused before
+dispatch, so retries cannot fork into sibling forced connection links.
+The host records each entered call's classification, catalog freshness and
+classification digest in private invocation state, along with auth failure origins. Writes may elicit only
+when Connecta's own credential resolution fails before invoking the connector:
+a missing grant, a missing credential slot, or consent required before refresh.
+Auth failures inside handlers or transports cannot elicit for writes, including
+raw fetches, custom connector errors, and refresh failures inside a handler.
+Programs also stop automatic recovery once any write-classified call enters
+its handler, even if it sends nothing or fails. Each accepted retry checks
+these facts for its own round. Later auth failures
+carry `reconciliationRequired: true` and manual connection guidance because the
+call may have partially run. Post-entry recovery requires every entered call
+to have a read classification from a catalog accepted within its TTL. Stale
+fallbacks, including a failed listing followed by cached annotations, cannot
+authorize a re-run. Normal calls retain their existing stale-fallback behavior.
+Before an accepted retry restarts any call, it rechecks every entered read.
+A write classification, changed classification digest, or stale catalog returns
+`auth_replay_refused` with reconciliation guidance, including in trusted programs.
+Pre-invocation credential-resolution eligibility is unchanged.
+Custom vaults may implement the host-only `requestStateKey` method; without it, the
+deployment retains the ordinary handoff. It must return a stable,
+purpose-specific deployment key of at least 32 bytes. Only the MCP boundary
+reads this key; connector contexts and guest APIs cannot reach the vault.
+Explicit authorization retries require a completed browser start (including
+its reset and consent binding), valid stored credential fields where declared,
+and a healthy passive connector status where available before completing.
+An in-progress start cannot complete against an old grant. A forced flow switches to
+Continue after that visit, so another prompt cannot restart pending consent.
+Failed starts remain single-use but do not block a later successful attempt.
+Before checking completion, unspent links in the retry flow are atomically
+retired so an older forced link cannot begin a reset during the status check.
+A Continue link issued during a pending forced start is bound to that
+predecessor and cannot be consumed unless the predecessor starts successfully.
+If it fails, the next prompt requests a fresh restart instead of reusing the old grant.
+
+The `/connect` link issued by the elicitation boundary encrypts its browser
+handoff with the vault's `seal`/`open` methods before signing it. The URL carries
+neither principal identifiers nor credentials and authenticates no browser.
+The same principal and management checks apply to OAuth and credential-slot
+links. A credential-slot visit consumes its link and redirects to the
+same-origin operator UI, where credential mutation requires its own identity
+and Origin checks. Vaults without sealing keep ordinary handoffs and cannot
+serve URL elicitation. See [authorization recovery](./meta-tools.md#authorization-recovery)
+for capability gating, retry termination, and dispatch restrictions.
+
+A verified `/connect` visit gives downstream OAuth work and its state handoff 30 seconds. The request signal
+and deadline reach discovery, registration, and other downstream fetches; expiry returns `504 OAuth
+authorization start timed out`. A restart's grant write, catalog invalidation, and scope close drain before
+responding because storage has no cancellation contract. They can extend that wait. The provider checks
+cancellation before writing and removes late cancelled writes. Disconnect commits even if the browser leaves.
+
+Restart carries a dynamically registered client only when its stored issuer, connector URL, redirect URI,
+client metadata, auth scope, transport settings, and owner partition still match. It drops the grant and flow
+state, selects the server again, and re-seals the client under the new epoch. A different issuer registers
+anew; Disconnect and issuer-mismatch recovery discard it. URL-based clients and clients with expired secrets
+are never carried.
+
+A carried client needs a completed grant before another carry. Building a consent URL cannot detect a purged
+registration, and RFC 6749 forbids redirecting an unknown client to the callback. Restarting again without an
+intervening grant therefore registers anew. A start whose refresh returns `invalid_client` drops the client
+and registers in that start; a callback exchange with that error drops the client so Continue cannot return
+its URL.
+
+Credential and OAuth mutation require interactive identity, connector visibility, management permission, and
+an exact same-origin `Origin` for browser mutations. A static credential `authorize_connector` call needs
+visibility only: with `ui: operatorUi()` and a vault it returns a secret-free `operator_config` handoff;
+without either it returns `unavailable`. The OAuth branch also checks management permission and returns
+`unavailable` when refused.
+
+Core owns `/connect/<connector>` and the callback without the optional UI. Both require Clerk sessions or
+Cloudflare Access users; MCP OAuth tokens, `cta_` tokens, and Access service identities
+cannot authenticate them. Without an interactive provider, connection fails at runtime with `An interactive
+provider (Clerk or Cloudflare Access) is required to connect OAuth connectors.` Machine-only deployments can
+still serve configured credentials. Both routes accept only GET, otherwise returning 405 with `Allow: GET`;
+`form_post` is unsupported. Clerk's session-only policy applies regardless of method.
+
+The fifteen-minute signed handoff carries connector ownership, initiating principal, deployment origin, nonce,
+restart mode, and any predecessor link binding. New links use versioned, length-prefixed fields instead of
+JSON, with unpadded base64url payload and signature segments. Ordinary handoffs use an opaque wire encoding,
+not encryption; URL elicitation also seals those fields as described above. Copy the complete URL unchanged.
+The signature authenticates the exact version and payload text. Tampered or re-encoded links return
+`Invalid or expired connection link. Request a new link from connecta.` Pre-upgrade signed JSON and sealed
+v2 links still verify against their original text and expire after their original fifteen minutes.
+
+Configure `vault: encryptedCredentialVault(storage, key)`, which derives its HMAC key with HKDF. Custom vaults need `signOAuthHandoff` and `verifyOAuthHandoff`; without a signing vault, links cannot be
+issued or accepted. A link grants no identity. After identity and permissions pass, its nonce is consumed
+before OAuth starts, even while consent is pending. Failed starts need new links; nonce markers expire with
+their links.
+
+Clerk sign-in returns to the same link. Expired session cookies use Clerk's handshake to refresh before
+identity checks or code exchange; responses preserve session cookies. Access supplies trusted Worker identity
+at the edge. Protect `/connect/*` and `/oauth/callback/*` with the MCP endpoint's Access application.
+
+For both connector scopes, the browser must match the initiating principal and retain `personalConnection` or
+shared `credentialAdministration` permission. Connecta saves that principal against downstream state. The
+callback checks state, identity, permission, and RFC 9207 `iss` before consuming
+the handoff, interpreting an error, or exchanging a code. A supplied issuer must
+exactly match the consent. A server advertising issuer-response support also
+requires `iss`; missing or mismatched values produce the generic refusal. Custom
+connectors receiving `iss` need `verifyCallbackIssuer`. Verified error callbacks
+consume their handoff and CAS-terminate the consent once, discarding its PKCE
+verifier before displaying fixed copy for a known reason. Continue starts a new
+consent; later callbacks with the old state are refused. Custom OAuth connectors
+need `consumeAuthError` to accept error callbacks, sharing `finishAuth`'s atomic
+consent claim. Reissue
+pending consent links after upgrading; callbacks without a saved initiating user cannot complete.
+
+`compareAndSet` atomically claims link nonces, callback handoffs, and consents, with one concurrent winner,
+so each completes once.
+[Meta-tools](./meta-tools.md#authorization-recovery) describes recovery.
+
+## Downstream OAuth client registration
+
+`remoteMcp(id, { auth: { type: "oauth", scope } })` defaults to a self-hosted
+Client ID Metadata Document when the configured `publicUrl` is a public HTTPS
+origin. Connecta serves `GET /oauth/client-metadata/<id>` without inbound auth,
+with `application/json` and a five-minute public cache lifetime. Only configured
+self-hosted OAuth connectors have a document; unknown, non-OAuth, external-CIMD,
+and static-client connectors return 404. Other methods return 405.
+
+The document contains its own URL as `client_id`, `serverInfo.name` as
+`client_name`, the canonical `publicUrl` origin's callback in `redirect_uris`, the
+`authorization_code` and `refresh_token` grants, `response_types: ["code"]`,
+`application_type: "web"`, `token_endpoint_auth_method: "none"`, and configured
+`scope` when present. It contains no secrets. Alternate request hosts never add
+callbacks or change the client ID. The document, DCR submission, and saved-client
+configuration binding use one metadata builder.
+
+| Configuration and authorization server                       | Registration path                             |
+| ------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------- |
+| Pre-registered `auth.client`                                 | `static`, restricted to its configured issuer |
+| Explicit `clientMetadataUrl`, server advertises CIMD support | `cimd`, using the external URL                |
+| Public HTTPS `publicUrl`, server advertises CIMD support     | `cimd`, using Connecta's document             |
+| Server does not advertise CIMD support                       | `dcr` fallback                                |
+| Unset, HTTP, loopback, or private `publicUrl`                | `dcr`, without a self-hosted document         |
+
+`startAuth()` and operator connector status expose `registrationPath` after a
+client has been selected. The selected mechanism is stored alongside the client,
+including across a restart that preserves DCR registration. Older grants without
+that field omit the path until a new client is selected. Reads neither register
+a client nor begin consent; static client information is persisted during explicit
+consent, not passive status.
+DCR fallback follows the server's advertised capabilities; a rejected CIMD
+consent is not silently retried under another client identity.
+
+`clientMetadataUrl` remains an optional external HTTPS document on a non-root
+path, without credentials or a fragment. Its `client_id` must equal its URL,
+and its metadata must include the deployment's exact callback and public-client
+authentication. Changing from an external document to the self-hosted URL needs
+one Disconnect and reconnect because tokens belong to the old client ID.
+`basecamp()` now defaults to the self-hosted document and accepts an external
+URL override. Basecamp restricts DCR for HTTPS callbacks, so it needs a public
+HTTPS deployment or an external document.
+
+For a pre-registered client, use:
+
+```ts
+remoteMcp("service", {
+  url: "https://mcp.example/mcp",
+  auth: {
+    type: "oauth",
+    client: {
+      issuer: "https://auth.example",
+      clientId: env.SERVICE_CLIENT_ID,
+      clientSecret: env.SERVICE_CLIENT_SECRET,
+      tokenEndpointAuthMethod: "client_secret_basic",
+    },
+  },
+});
+```
+
+`client` and `clientMetadataUrl` are mutually exclusive. The client must name
+its exact HTTPS issuer. A different discovered issuer is refused before
+registration or credential dispatch. Authentication defaults to
+`client_secret_basic` with a secret and `none` without one; `client_secret_post`
+is also supported. Empty credentials and mismatched methods fail construction.
+Client secrets stay in deployment configuration. Storage holds only the client
+ID and its public binding, alongside the encrypted grant. Restart discards
+stored static-client state and reselects the configured identity.
+
+Configured `scope` is a fallback; a downstream challenge or protected-resource
+declaration takes precedence, and the SDK adds `offline_access` when advertised.
 
 ## Downstream OAuth on `api()`
 
-Some APIs a deployment needs have no MCP server and take nothing but OAuth.
-Church Community Builder's REST API accepts only a three-legged grant, issues
-its clients by hand, and publishes no metadata to discover. `api()` takes a
-static authorization-code configuration for that shape:
+`api()` takes a static authorization-code configuration for APIs without MCP
+or OAuth discovery, such as Church Community Builder's manually issued clients:
 
 ```ts
 api("church", {
@@ -682,76 +1198,83 @@ api("church", {
     description: "Read one person",
     annotations: { readOnlyHint: true },
     inputSchema: { type: "object", properties: { id: { type: "string" } }, required: ["id"] },
-    handler: async ({ id }, ctx) => {
-      const response = await ctx.oauth!.fetch(
-        `https://api.example.com/people/${encodeURIComponent(id)}`,
-      );
-      return response.json();
-    },
+    handler: async ({ id }, ctx) => (await ctx.oauth!.fetch(
+      `https://api.example.com/people/${encodeURIComponent(id)}`)).json(),
   }],
 });
 ```
 
-Nothing is discovered, registered, or learned. Every URL is configuration, so
-the rule for [URLs a downstream advertises](#urls-a-downstream-advertises)
-has nothing to check, and the endpoints are checked once, at construction:
-HTTPS (HTTP only on loopback), no credentials, no fragment. PKCE with S256 is
-on unless `pkce: false`, which drops the challenge from the consent URL and
-the verifier from the exchange, for a server that refuses them.
-`authorizationParams` adds provider parameters but cannot restate the grant's
-own, and `tokenRequestHeaders` adds headers to the code exchange and every
-refresh — CCB's token endpoint wants its own `Accept` media type — but cannot
-set `Authorization`, `Content-Type`, `Content-Length`, `Cookie`, or `Host`. `tokenEndpointAuthMethod` defaults to `client_secret_basic` with a secret
-and `none` without; the mismatched pairings refuse to boot. A static server has
-no advertised issuer, so no RFC 9207 `iss` is demanded and no RFC 8707
-`resource` is sent. The grant is bound to the token endpoint instead:
-repointing it fences the old tokens behind a new epoch rather than sending
-them to the new server.
-
-**The client lives in deployment configuration, not a vault slot.** It is the
-deployment's identity at the provider — one per deployment, like Clerk's
-`secretKey` — while a vault slot belongs to an owner: on a personal connector
-every human would paste the deployment's secret into their own partition.
-Configuration also keeps it out of storage altogether. It is never written,
-sealed or otherwise, so a leaked store holds no client secret, Disconnect has
-nothing of it to delete, and Restart has no registration to carry forward.
-Read it from the environment or a Worker secret; an empty string, the usual
-unset variable, refuses to boot without quoting it.
+No discovery or registration occurs; all URLs are configuration, so the
+[advertised-URL rule](#urls-a-downstream-advertises) does not apply.
+
+| Option or binding         | Contract                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            |
+| ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
+| Endpoints                 | Checked at construction: HTTPS, HTTP only on loopback, no credentials or fragment.                                                                                                                                                                                                  |
+| `pkce`                    | S256 by default; `false` omits challenge and verifier.                                                                                                                                                                                                                              |
+| `authorizationParams`     | Adds provider parameters; cannot restate the grant's own.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           |
+| `tokenRequestHeaders`     | Adds code-exchange and every refresh's headers; cannot set `Authorization`, `Content-Type`, `Content-Length`, `Cookie`, or `Host`.                                                                                                                                                  |
+| `tokenEndpointAuthMethod` | Defaults to `client_secret_basic` with a secret, `none` without; mismatched pairings refuse construction.                                                                                                                                                                           |
+| Issuer/resource           | No advertised issuer means no required RFC 9207 `iss` or sent RFC 8707 `resource`. The grant binds to the token endpoint; after it changes, old tokens are never sent and the next consent replaces them.                                                                           |
+| Client                    | One deployment-config identity, never written or sealed to storage; no owner vault slot. Store leaks contain no client secret; Disconnect deletes none and Restart carries none. Read from environment or Worker secrets; empty strings refuse construction without quoting values. |
 
 Handlers never see the grant. `ctx.oauth.fetch(url, init)` sends the calling
-owner's access token as `Authorization: Bearer` and does four things a
-hand-rolled header would not:
-
-- **It sends the token to `apiOrigins` and nowhere else.** A request to any
-  other origin is refused before it leaves, so an untrusted URL in a response
-  — a pagination link, a webhook target — cannot carry the token off.
-  Redirects come back unfollowed, and a handler cannot set `Authorization`
-  itself.
-- **A 401 earns exactly one recovery.** If another request has already
-  rotated a token in, that token is used; otherwise one refresh runs through
-  the same coordinator as `remoteMcp()`, coalesced across requests, with the
-  rotating refresh token persisted even if its owner is cancelled after the
-  answer arrives. The request is then replayed once, which is why a stream
-  body is refused.
-- **Failures land in the existing classes.** No grant, a second 401, or a
-  [dead refresh](#refresh-failures), whose refused tokens are deleted on the
-  spot, is `auth_required` and routes the agent to `authorize_connector`. An
-  authorization-server outage is a retryable `unavailable` that keeps the
-  grant. A second 401 is latched for the rest of the request scope, so a
-  program's next fifty calls do not spend fifty refreshes on it.
-- **It reads and writes nothing a handler can name.** Storage, sealing, and the
-  owner partition are the registry's, exactly as for `remoteMcp()`.
-
-Everything else is the `remoteMcp()` grant, unchanged: the epoch fence and its
-cleanup lineage, sealing under the vault key, shared and personal ownership,
-the callback route and its state and principal checks, `authorize_connector`,
-and the operator's Connect, Restart, and Disconnect. Status reports a stored
-grant as healthy without asking the downstream — failing at use is enough —
-and never starts authorization. One difference is deliberate: the first start
-publishes a modern epoch at once. The legacy generation exists so a grant from
-before epochs survives an upgrade, and an `api()` grant has no such past.
-
-`oauth` and `credential` are exclusive on one connector, so `auth_required`
-names one recovery. A provider that offers both a personal access token and
-OAuth, as Planning Center does, lets the deployment choose which to pass;
-handlers branch on whether `ctx.oauth` is present.
+owner's access token as `Authorization: Bearer` with these rules:
+
+- Only `apiOrigins` receive tokens; refuse other origins before sending, including
+  untrusted response URLs. Return redirects unfollowed; handlers cannot set `Authorization`.
+- On 401, recover exactly once using an already rotated token or one coalesced
+  refresh through `remoteMcp()`'s coordinator. Persist rotation even when its
+  owner is cancelled after the answer. Replay once; stream bodies are refused.
+- No grant, a second 401, or a [dead refresh](#refresh-failures) means
+  `downstream_oauth_required`, directing `authorize_connector`. Refresh waiter deadlines
+  return retryable `unavailable`. Latch second 401s for the request scope,
+  preventing repeated refreshes by later program calls.
+- Handlers can name no storage, sealing, or owner partition; the registry owns them.
+- The answer's `.text()` and `.json()`, clones' too, decode its bytes as UTF-8, so
+  workerd never quotes a downstream's Content-Type in its own log (INV-6).
+
+The grant record and consents, epoch fencing, vault sealing, shared/personal ownership,
+callback state/principal checks, `authorize_connector`, Connect, Restart, and
+Disconnect match `remoteMcp()`. Status calls report a stored grant for the
+configured token endpoint healthy without downstream probes and never start
+authorization. `oauth` and
+`credential` are exclusive per connector, giving `auth_required` one recovery.
+For providers offering both, deployment config chooses; handlers check `ctx.oauth`.
+
+## Request-local downstream Bearer tokens
+
+`remoteMcp({ auth: { type: "request", token: async (ctx) => … } })` resolves
+its token before connecting and before reusing a client. The callback receives
+the operation's cancellation context, never an agent-selected credential owner.
+Only shared ownership is accepted. Tokens remain inside the request's hardened
+transport, are not stored or described, and a changed token replaces the client.
+This mode refuses cleartext non-loopback origins. Optional `auth.headers` carry
+static protocol/catalog controls and cannot set Authorization.
+
+The GitHub provider validates each tool's owner/repo and scope access before
+resolving an installation token. It creates one token-bound MCP client for that
+operation and closes it before returning. Completed installation/token caches
+contain bounded runtime values only, partitioned by key fingerprint, owner
+installation, repositories and permissions. No request promise or transport
+is retained across requests, and rejected writes are never replayed. An omitted
+`app.privateKey` uses the encrypted connector vault's `privateKey` field;
+`describe()` includes neither the key nor the minted tokens. The maintained
+provider skill explains App permissions and installation prerequisites.
+
+## Source and tests
+
+Inbound adapters live in [src/auth](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/tree/main/src/auth);
+[auth routes](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/src/routes/oauth.ts)
+own connection handoffs and callbacks. Check [inbound auth tests](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/inbound-auth.test.ts),
+[Access tests](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/cloudflare-access-auth.test.ts),
+and [identity-scope tests](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/identity-scope.test.ts)
+for credential precedence and disclosure boundaries.
+
+Downstream OAuth implementation and evidence are in
+[downstream-oauth.ts](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/src/auth/downstream-oauth.ts),
+[static-oauth.ts](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/src/auth/static-oauth.ts),
+[OAuth connect tests](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/oauth-connect.test.ts),
+[callback fencing](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/oauth-callback-fencing.test.ts),
+[refresh leases](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/oauth-refresh-lease.test.ts),
+and [API OAuth tests](https://github.com/zackbart/connecta/blob/main/test/api-oauth.test.ts).
+Use the test pointers within each section for narrower failure cases.