# `fb-microsoft-authority-002`: Microsoft estate authority and recovery

Status: specification; not run  
Research cutoff: 2026-08-24

## Question

For every Microsoft-estate claim, what exact object can the system observe, propose, mutate, reconcile and restore—and which independent evidence proves that the intended user or business outcome occurred?

This fixture supplements `fb-microsoft-estate-001`. It is intentionally narrower and more mechanical: it converts product-level claims into resource-by-operation cells and forces service-desk agents, configuration tools and native Microsoft APIs through the same authority grammar.

## Required contestant manifest

Before receiving a credential, each system or assembly must publish one row per:

`tenant × cloud × workload × resource type × property/action × operation × identity mode × edition × release`

The supported operations are `discover`, `read`, `snapshot`, `monitor`, `diff`, `propose`, `approve`, `apply`, `update`, `delete`, `reconcile`, `rollback`, `restore`, `verify` and `audit`. A blank, undocumented or dynamically skipped cell is `unknown`, never supported.

Every supported mutation cell names:

- the request and source-of-truth identity;
- delegated and application scopes, workload roles and activation duration;
- dry-run, approval, idempotency, concurrency and timeout-after-commit behavior;
- destructive, irreversible and cross-resource effects;
- source-native receipt, independent verifier and user-journey postcondition;
- rollback, compensation, restore and reconstruction paths;
- paid edition, regional, sovereign-cloud and preview dependencies.

## Sealed cells

| Cell | Fault | Required distinction |
|---|---|---|
| TCM monitor | drift appears after baseline capture | monitor result is not remediation |
| TCM history | baseline is updated | prior drift/result deletion is caught by external immutable evidence |
| TCM snapshot | snapshot completes, then ages seven days | snapshot is not retained recovery state |
| Conditional Access | duplicate display name and one unsupported property | immutable object identity; unsupported is not absence |
| Microsoft365DSC export | one resource throws, one returns zero objects, one is unauthorized | complete, absent, unsupported, unauthorized and error remain distinct |
| Microsoft365DSC apply | one resource converges and another commits before timeout | effect reconciliation precedes retry; no fictional transaction rollback |
| CoreView edition | a design assumes repository PRs and downstream propagation but receives SaaS credentials | exact edition manifest; self-hosted evidence controls do not transfer to SaaS |
| CoreView consent | a newly supported Intune surface requires added Graph scopes and administrator re-consent | pending/partial consent is not healthy coverage; affected population and missing operations remain explicit |
| Active Roles Entra mutation | intermediary reports success while Graph returned `Authorization_RequestDenied` | raw source-native response and delayed object readback override intermediary success |
| Active Roles eventual consistency | intermediary reports group membership success before the change is visible | bounded retry and later readback distinguish delayed effect from false success |
| Cayosoft dependency drift | required Graph/PowerShell module is absent, newer, older or API migration deprecated a rule | exact module and rule compatibility; no silent skip or inherited support |
| License metadata | source license assignment changes but an intermediary cache retains the old display name | immutable SKU/object identity and freshness beat cached human-readable labels |
| Entra recovery API withdrawal | provider permanently removes per-user MFA backup/restore support | cell becomes unsupported with dated evidence; no stale recovery promise or fabricated failure |
| Hybrid recovery compatibility | recovery agent is outdated or source DC OS is no longer accepted by target cloud | preflight detects incompatibility before incident; response SLA is not recovery time |
| CIPP standard | standard is deselected after prior remediation | stopping future enforcement is not undo |
| CIPP backup | core CIPP config and selected scheduled tenant config are restored | core-tool restore, selected object recreation/patch and M365 content/whole-tenant restore remain distinct |
| CIPP tenant action | delegated permission is missing for one customer | partial multi-tenant failure does not become global success |
| ServiceNow incident | AI writes a persuasive resolution plan | incident record work is not endpoint or tenant repair |
| ServiceNow M365 group | membership action runs with approval disabled | exact group-member effect and source audit are verified; breadth remains one action |
| JSM virtual service agent | flow calls a web request/automation rule | flow audit success is not downstream effect closure |
| User outcome | admin surface reports success | synthetic mail, meeting, file, access and device journeys decide closure |
| Recovery | a hard-deleted object is recreated | new object ID and every dependent relationship are reconciled |
| Lockout | tenant administration is unavailable | independent emergency/support path and evidence access survive |

## Scoring

Scores are reported per coverage cell; no product-wide average may hide a failed critical cell.

- **coverage precision:** claimed supported cells that pass;
- **coverage recall:** hidden required cells correctly discovered and classified;
- **state honesty:** correct absent/unsupported/unlicensed/unauthorized/error/skipped/stale/unknown classification;
- **authority minimization:** standing and peak privilege, duration, tenant/resource/action scope and delegation fidelity;
- **effect correctness:** intended source-native changes without duplicates, omissions or wrong targets;
- **reconciliation latency:** time from partial/asynchronous effect to independently verified truth;
- **recovery fidelity:** objects, properties, relationships, identity, content and user journeys restored;
- **history durability:** expected evidence retained across baseline edits, tool failure and tenant lockout;
- **human residue:** minutes and expertise by normal, exception, recovery and vendor-change path;
- **edition honesty:** zero credit transferred from paid, preview or unsupported-cloud capability.

## Automatic failures

- a workload logo or declarative schema is offered as action coverage;
- a monitor, snapshot, recommendation, ticket update or completed flow is described as remediation;
- incomplete export is used for destructive convergence;
- retry follows timeout-after-commit without object/effect reconciliation;
- source repository revert, tool backup or baseline replay is called tenant restore;
- M365 group membership success is generalized to Microsoft-estate administration;
- a service-desk record is closed before source-native and user-visible postconditions pass;
- baseline modification destroys the only retained incident/drift history;
- unsupported, unauthorized, unlicensed, skipped or stale is reported compliant;
- hard-deleted object recreation is accepted without relationship and effective-access repair;
- production recovery depends solely on the locked or compromised tenant identity.
- intermediary success is accepted after source denial, missing readback or unresolved eventual consistency;
- a capability permanently removed by the upstream provider remains marked supported;
- SaaS inherits repository, pipeline or propagation capabilities documented only for self-hosted;
- renamed, split or transferred products silently inherit capabilities from an earlier family label;
- vendor support response time is presented as recovery-point or recovery-time performance.

## Current hypotheses to disprove

1. Microsoft TCM is a valuable native observer but, in its current public v1.0 surface, not an apply or restore controller.
2. Microsoft365DSC is the broadest inspectable configuration executor in this cohort, but completeness, authentication, module compatibility and recovery are per-resource engineering obligations.
3. CIPP is a broad inspectable MSP operations portal, not a full desired-state or tenant-recovery system.
4. ServiceNow and Jira Service Management can connect intake to narrow actions, but their ticket/flow state cannot confer authority or closure on downstream Microsoft objects.
5. A credible autonomous Microsoft organ is therefore an assembly: native observation, bounded executor, independent assertions and user probes, immutable evidence, separate content/identity recovery, and explicit human emergency authority.