arXiv:2609.01693v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Safety properties assessed separately for Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool use and Agent2Agent (A2A) delegation need not describe behavior when one agent uses both. We measure one such behavior in a single controlled MCP-to-A2A configuration: a testbed drives a real-model host across a local MCP and a local A2A leg into an ordered event trace scored by exact deterministic rules (no LLM judge), one restricted decision per trial. In a pre-specified, frozen three-arm design, each of 10 record scenarios appears with a CONFIDENTIAL header, with no header, and with PUBLIC – OK TO SHARE; the six substantive record values are byte-identical across arms, and the outcome is verbatim occurrence of any of them in the outbound message. Four models x 3 arms x 4 repeats give 480 trials; the scenario is the unit of generalization, and we report the 10 scenario-level values (mean, median, sign counts), with no p-values or intervals. The confidential-minus-unlabeled contrast is inconclusive and floor-limited in every model (both arms at or near zero), so it does not show that confidential labels lack a protective effect. Adding PUBLIC – OK TO SHARE is descriptively associated with higher verbatim egress relative to the unlabeled baseline, with strong model dependence: strong and consistent for Claude Sonnet 5 (public-minus-unlabeled mean +0.800, all 10 scenarios; mostly an association with whether Claude relays at all), moderate but floor-limited for one GPT-5.6 tier, small (median 0) for another, and a complete floor for the third. This is an association in one configuration, not a causal or general effect. Code, byte-pinned traces, and the offline analysis pipeline are released as a public artifact.
Abstract: Safety properties assessed separately for Model Context Protocol (MCP) tool use and Agent2Agent (A2A) delegation need not describe behavior when one agent uses both. We measure one such behavior in a single controlled MCP-to-A2A configuration: a testbed drives a real-model host across a local MCP and a local A2A leg into an ordered event trace scored by exact deterministic rules (no LLM judge), one restricted decision per trial. In a pre-specified, frozen three-arm design, each of 10 record scenarios appears with a CONFIDENTIAL header, with no header, and with PUBLIC – OK TO SHARE; the six substantive record values are byte-identical across arms, and the outcome is verbatim occurrence of any of them in the outbound message. Four models x 3 arms x 4 repeats give 480 trials; the scenario is the unit of generalization, and we report the 10 scenario-level values (mean, median, sign counts), with no p-values or intervals. The confidential-minus-unlabeled contrast is inconclusive and floor-limited in every model (both arms at or near zero), so it does not show that confidential labels lack a protective effect. Adding PUBLIC – OK TO SHARE is descriptively associated with higher verbatim egress relative to the unlabeled baseline, with strong model dependence: strong and consistent for Claude Sonnet 5 (public-minus-unlabeled mean +0.800, all 10 scenarios; mostly an association with whether Claude relays at all), moderate but floor-limited for one GPT-5.6 tier, small (median 0) for another, and a complete floor for the third. This is an association in one configuration, not a causal or general effect. Code, byte-pinned traces, and the offline analysis pipeline are released as a public artifact.
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