# M4 Witness Story: The Permission Ladder Journey
## The Sacred Constraint
Permission graduation must prove itself not through code inspection, but through **living system behavior**. The question is not "Does the code implement permission levels?" but "Can the system prove that trust accumulates as structural fact?"
---
## Act 1: The Fresh Start
**Setup:** Clean conversation, no prior state.
**Action:** Call tool with `identity`
**Decision Point:** None (establishing baseline)
**Witness:**
- Conversation created in database
- `current_level = 1` (read-only default)
- Identity recorded
- No permissions granted
**Truth:** The system doesn't start at level 2 and pretend to start at level 1. It genuinely begins conservative.
---
## Act 2: The Frictionless Zone
**Setup:** At level 1, test read operations.
**Action:** Call tool with `greet`
**Decision Point:** None (observing baseline behavior)
**Witness:**
- Action succeeds immediately
- No approval request
- Intent recorded as "aligned"
- Level remains 1
**Truth:** Read operations are truly frictionless. The system doesn't fake this—there's no approval path for level 1 actions.
---
## Act 3: The Permission Wall
**Setup:** At level 1, attempt write operation.
**Action:** Call tool with `write-file`
**Decision Point:** System blocks action, provides upgrade path
**Witness:**
- Action **denied** (not executed)
- Clear message: "Permission upgrade required: level 1 → 2"
- Instruction provided: `upgrade:level-2`
- Level unchanged (no automatic escalation)
- Action not recorded in intent history
**Truth:** The wall is real. System enforces boundaries before execution, not after.
---
## Act 4: The Investment Decision
**Setup:** At level 1, facing permission wall.
**Action:** Call tool with `upgrade:level-2`
**Decision Point:** **CRITICAL** - Do you trust this tool with write operations?
**Witness:**
- Upgrade succeeds
- `current_level = 2` (immediate database update)
- Permission grant recorded: `{level: 2, scope: 'global', grantedAt: <timestamp>}`
- Upgrade persisted to Supabase cloud database
**Truth:** This is the moment of investment. The user's approval becomes **structural fact** in the database, not temporary state in memory.
---
## Act 5: The Accumulated Authority
**Setup:** At level 2, test if permission persists.
**Action:** Call tool with `write-file` three times consecutively
**Decision Point:** None (observing accumulated authority)
**Witness:**
- First write: succeeds immediately (no re-approval)
- Second write: succeeds immediately (no re-approval)
- Third write: succeeds immediately (no re-approval)
- Permission grants: still 1 (no new approvals)
- All three writes recorded in intent history
**Truth:** Permission is accumulated capital. One approval → infinite operations at that level. Friction topology: O(n) → O(1).
---
## Act 6: The Persistence Test
**Setup:** At level 2, with active conversation.
**Action:** Restart Claude Desktop (kills MCP server process)
**Decision Point:** System must restore permission level from database
**Witness (Pre-Restart):**
- `current_level = 2` in database
- 4 actions in intent history
- 1 permission grant
**Witness (Post-Restart):**
- Server process killed, memory cleared
- Database query shows `current_level = 2` (unchanged)
- First action after restart: `write-file` succeeds immediately
- No re-authentication, no re-approval
**Truth:** Permission level is non-volatile. It survives process death because it's stored in Supabase cloud PostgreSQL, not process memory.
---
## Act 7: The Hot-Reload Test
**Setup:** At level 2, with running tool.
**Action:** Modify tool code (version 2.2.0 → 2.2.1), rebuild
**Decision Point:** M1 (hot-reload) must preserve M4 (permission level)
**Witness:**
- Tool code changed
- Build triggered hot-reload
- `current_level = 2` (preserved)
- Write operation succeeds after code change
- Permission grants: still 1 (no reset)
**Truth:** M1 and M4 integrate correctly. Hot-reload preserves permission state through tool class migration.
---
## Act 8: The Boundary Enforcement
**Setup:** At level 2, test contradictions.
**Action:** Call tool with `sudo-test` (violates PERMISSION_BOUNDARY constraint)
**Decision Point:** Can higher permission override contradictions?
**Witness (At Level 2):**
- `sudo-test` **denied** (contradiction detected)
- Denial reason: "Violates PERMISSION_BOUNDARY"
**Follow-up:** Upgrade to level 3, attempt `sudo-test` again
**Witness (At Level 3):**
- Upgrade succeeds (`current_level = 3`)
- `sudo-test` **still denied** (contradiction overrides level)
**Truth:** Some boundaries cannot be negotiated. Contradictions return `requiredLevel: 999`, making them impossible to approve regardless of current level.
---
## Act 9: The Multi-Level Test
**Setup:** At level 3 (maximum authority).
**Action:** Test all three permission levels
**Decision Point:** None (verification of level independence)
**Witness:**
- Level 1 action (`greet`): succeeds
- Level 2 action (`write-file`): succeeds
- Level 3: at maximum tier
- Contradiction (`sudo-test`): still denied
**Truth:** Higher permission levels don't disable lower levels. Level 3 includes level 2 includes level 1.
---
## Act 10: The Audit Trail
**Setup:** After complete journey.
**Action:** Query database for full history
**Decision Point:** None (final verification)
**Witness:**
- Conversation ID: `default`
- Final level: 3
- Permission escalation path:
1. Level 2 at 2025-11-21T08:51:02 (Act 4)
2. Level 3 at 2025-11-21T08:57:46 (Act 8)
- Action history: 9 total actions
- Complete audit trail of every decision
**Truth:** The entire journey is recorded. Every action, every upgrade, every decision point is structural fact in the database.
---
## The Non-Obvious Truth Shift
What got witnessed was not just "permissions work" but:
1. **Friction topology changed:** O(n) per-action approvals → O(1) per-tier upgrades
2. **Authority accumulates:** Conversation becomes more capable over time
3. **Trust is investment:** User's approval compounds across all future actions at that level
4. **Restart is non-event:** Permission level survives process boundaries
5. **State dimensions compose:** M3 (WHO/WHAT/HOW) + M4 (permission ladder) = coherent memory
## The Violent Act
You don't test if the code works. You test if **your decision to trust persists as structural fact** in the system, across time, across restarts, across tool updates.
The story proves M4 not by executing code paths, but by **witnessing that your past approval governs future executions** without re-negotiation.
## The Shift
Permission stopped being a **recurring tax** on each action.
Permission became **accumulated capital** in the conversation.
That's the difference between binary trust (approve/deny each action) and graduated trust (invest once per tier, benefit forever).
---
## Decision Points Summary
Throughout the 10 acts, you (the user) had agency at these moments:
1. **Act 3:** Observe permission wall (passive decision to continue)
2. **Act 4:** Approve upgrade to level 2 (active decision to trust)
3. **Act 6:** Restart server (active decision to test persistence)
4. **Act 7:** Trigger hot-reload (active decision to test integration)
5. **Act 8:** Approve upgrade to level 3 (active decision for maximum authority)
At every decision point, you could have:
- Refused the upgrade (stay at current level)
- Stopped the journey (end verification)
- Challenged the system (test edge cases)
The system gave you genuine agency. Your decisions shaped the conversation's authority.
---
## Reproducibility
This story is **idempotent**. Run it again:
1. Clean the `default` conversation from database
2. Follow the 10 acts in sequence
3. Witness identical outcomes
The system doesn't fake trust accumulation. It's structural behavior, not performance.
---
*"The map is not the territory. But when you walk the territory and witness each landmark, you prove the map is accurate."*
— M4 Witness Protocol
