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Aries RFC 0035: Report Problem Protocol 1.0

Summary

Describes how to report errors and warnings in a powerful, interoperable way. All implementations of SSI agent or hub technology SHOULD implement this RFC.

Motivation

Effective reporting of errors and warnings is difficult in any system, and particularly so in decentralized systems such as remotely collaborating agents. We need to surface problems, and their supporting context, to people who want to know about them (and perhaps separately, to people who can actually fix them). This is especially challenging when a problem is detected well after and well away from its cause, and when multiple parties may need to cooperate on a solution.

Interoperability is perhaps more crucial with problem reporting than with any other aspect of DIDComm, since an agent written by one developer MUST be able to understand an error reported by an entirely different team. Notice how different this is from normal enterprise software development, where developers only need to worry about understanding their own errors.

The goal of this RFC is to provide agents with tools and techniques possible to address these challenges. It makes two key contributions:

  • A protocol that helps an Agent report problems with appropriate context. We expect this to be a subprotocol of nearly every interesting application-level protocol; messages from it may even be adopted into other protocols.
  • An inventory of problem categories and best practices for handling them.

Tutorial

"Error" vs. "Warning" vs. "Problem"

The distinction between "error" and "warning" is often thought of as one of severity -- errors are really bad, and warnings are only somewhat bad. This is reinforced by the way logging platforms assign numeric constants to ERROR vs. WARN log events, and by the way compilers let warnings be suppressed but refuse to ignore errors.

However, any cybersecurity professional will tell you that warnings sometimes signal deep and scary problems that should not be ignored, and most veteran programmers can tell war stories that reinforce this wisdom. A deeper analysis of warnings reveals that what truly differentiates them from errors is not their lesser severity, but rather their greater ambiguity. Warnings are problems that require human judgment to evaluate, whereas errors are unambiguously bad.

The mechanism for reporting problems in DIDComm cannot make a simplistic assumption that all agents are configured to run with a particular verbosity or debug level. Each agent must let other agents decide for themselves, based on policy or user preference, what do do about various issues. For this reason, we use the generic term "problem" instead of the more specific and semantically opinionated term "error" (or "warning") to describe the general situation we're addressing. "Problem" includes any deviation from the so-called "happy path" of an interaction. This could include situations where the severity is unknown and must be evaluated by a human, as well as surprising events (e.g., a decision by a human to alter the basis for in-flight messaging by moving from one device to another).

Specific Challenges

All of the following challenges need to be addressed.

  1. Report problems to external parties interacting with us. For example, AliceCorp has to be able to tell Bob that it can’t issue the credential he requested because his payment didn’t go through.
  2. Report problems to other entities inside our own domain. For example, AliceCorp’s agent #1 has to be able to report to AliceCorp agent #2 that it is out of disk space.
  3. Report in a way that provides human beings with useful context and guidance to troubleshoot. Most developers know of cases where error reporting was technically correct but completely useless. Bad communication about problems is one of the most common causes of UX debacles. Humans using agents will speak different languages, have differing degrees of technical competence, and have different software and hardware resources. They may lack context about what their agents are doing, such as when a DIDComm interaction occurs as a result of scheduled or policy-driven actions. This makes context and guidance crucial.
  4. Map a problem backward in time, space, and circumstances, so when it is studied, its original context is available. This is particularly difficult in DIDComm, which is transport-agnostic and inherently asynchronous, and which takes place on an inconsistently connected digital landscape.
  5. Support localization using techniques in the l10n RFC.
  6. Provide consistent, locale-independent problem codes, not just localized text, so problems can be researched in knowledge bases, on Stack Overflow, and in other internet forums, regardless of the natural language in which a message displays. This also helps meaning remain stable as wording is tweaked.
  7. Provide a registry of well known problem codes that are carefully defined and localized, to maximize shared understanding. Maintaining an exhaustive list of all possible things that can go wrong with all possible agents in all possible interactions is completely unrealistic. However, it may be possible to maintain a curated subset. While we can't enumerate everything that can go wrong in a financial transaction, a code for "insufficient funds" might have near-universal usefulness. Compare the posix error inventory in errorno.h.
  8. Facilitate automated problem handling by agents, not just manual handling by humans. Perfect automation may be impossible, but high levels of automation should be doable.
  9. Clarify how the problem affects an in-progress interaction. Does a failure to process payment reset the interaction to the very beginning of the protocol, or just back to the previous step, where payment was requested? This requires problems to be matched in a formal way to the state machine of a protocol underway.

The report-problem protocol

Reporting problems uses a simple one-step notification protocol. Its official PIURI is:

https://didcomm.org/report-problem/1.0

The protocol includes the standard notifier and notified roles. It defines a single message type problem-report, introduced here. It also adopts the ack message from the ACK 1.0 protocol, to accommodate the possibility that the ~please_ack decorator may be used on the notification.

A problem-report communicates about a problem when an agent-to-agent message is possible and a recipient for the problem report is known. This covers, for example, cases where a Sender's message gets to an intended Recipient, but the Recipient is unable to process the message for some reason and wants to notify the Sender. It may also be relevant in cases where the recipient of the problem-report is not a message Sender. Of course, a reporting technique that depends on message delivery doesn't apply when the error reporter can't identify or communicate with the proper recipient.

The problem-report message type

Only description.code is required, but a maximally verbose problem-report could contain all of the following:

{
  "@type"            : "https://didcomm.org/report-problem/1.0/problem-report",
  "@id"              : "an identifier that can be used to discuss this error message",
  "~thread"          : "info about the threading context in which the error occurred (if any)",
  "description"      : { "en": "localized message", "code": "symbolic-name-for-error" },
  "problem_items"    : [ {"<item descrip>": "value"} ],
  "who_retries"      : "enum: you | me | both | none",
  "fix_hint"         : { "en": "localized error-instance-specific hint of how to fix issue"},
  "impact"           : "enum: message | thread | connection",
  "where"            : "enum: you | me | other - enum: cloud | edge | wire | agency | ..",
  "noticed_time"     : "<time>",
  "tracking_uri"     : "",
  "escalation_uri"   : ""
}

Field Reference

Some fields will be relevant and useful in many use cases, but not always. Including empty or null fields is discouraged; best practice is to include as many fields as you can fill with useful data, and to omit the others.

@id: An identifier for this message, as described in the message threading RFC. This decorator is STRONGLY recommended, because enables a dialog about the problem itself in a branched thread (e.g., suggest a retry, report a resolution, ask for more information).

~thread: A thread decorator that places the problem-report into a thread context. If the problem was triggered in the processing of a message, then the triggering message is the head of a new thread of which the problem report is the second member (~thread.sender_order = 0). In such cases, the ~thread.pthid (parent thread id) here would be the @id of the triggering message. If the problem-report is unrelated to a message, the thread decorator is mostly redundant, as ~thread.thid must equal @id.

description: Contains human-readable, localized alternative string(s) that explain the problem. It is highly recommended that the message follow use the guidance in the l10n RFC, allowing the error to be searched on the web and documented formally.

description.code: Required. Contains the code that indicates the problem being communicated. Codes are described in protocol RFCs and other relevant places. New Codes SHOULD follow the Problem Code naming convention detailed in the DIDComm v2 spec.

problem_items: A list of one or more key/value pairs that are parameters about the problem. Some examples might be:

  • a list of arguments that didn’t pass input validation
  • the name of a file or URL that could not be fetched
  • the name of a crypto algorithm that the receiving agent didn’t support

All items should have in common the fact that they exemplify the problem described by the code (e.g., each is an invalid param, or each is an unresponsive URL, or each is an unrecognized crypto algorithm, etc).

Each item in the list must be a tagged pair (a JSON {key:value}, where the key names the parameter or item, and the value is the actual problem text/number/value. For example, to report that two different endpoints listed in party B’s DID Doc failed to respond when they were contacted, the code might contain "endpoint-not-responding", and the problem_items property might contain:

[
  {"endpoint1": "http://agency.com/main/endpoint"},
  {"endpoint2": "http://failover.agency.com/main/endpoint"}
]

who_retries: value is the string "you", the string "me", the string "both", or the string "none". This property tells whether a problem is considered permanent and who the sender of the problem report believes should have the responsibility to resolve it by retrying. Rules about how many times to retry, and who does the retry, and under what circumstances, are not enforceable and not expressed in the message text. This property is thus not a strong commitment to retry--only a recommendation of who should retry, with the assumption that retries will often occur if they make sense.

[TODO: figure out how to identify parties > 2 in n-wise interaction]

fix_hint: Contains human-readable, localized suggestions about how to fix this instance of the problem. If present, this should be viewed as overriding general hints found in a message catalog.

impact: A string describing the breadth of impact of the problem. An enumerated type:

  • "message" (this is a problem with a single message only; the rest of the interaction may still be fine),
  • "thread" (this is a problem that endangers or invalidates the entire thread),
  • "connection" (this is a problem that endangers or invalidates the entire connection).

where: A string that describes where the error happened, from the perspective of the reporter, and that uses the "you" or "me" or "other" prefix, followed by a suffix like "cloud", "edge", "wire", "agency", etc.

noticed_time: Standard time entry (ISO-8601 UTC with at least day precision and up to millisecond precision) of when the problem was detected.

[TODO: should we refer to timestamps in a standard way ("date"? "time"? "timestamp"? "when"?)]

tracking_uri: Provides a URI that allows the recipient to track the status of the error. For example, if the error is related to a service that is down, the URI could be used to monitor the status of the service, so its return to operational status could be automatically discovered.

escalation_uri: Provides a URI where additional help on the issue can be received. For example, this might be a "mailto" and email address for the Help Desk associated with a currently down service.

Sample

{
  "@type": "https://didcomm.org/notification/1.0/problem-report",
  "@id": "7c9de639-c51c-4d60-ab95-103fa613c805",
  "~thread": {
    "pthid": "1e513ad4-48c9-444e-9e7e-5b8b45c5e325",
    "sender_order": 1
  },
  "~l10n"            : {"catalog": "https://didcomm.org/error-codes"},
  "description"      : "Unable to find a route to the specified recipient.",
  "description~l10n" : {"code": "cant-find-route" },
  "problem_items"    : [
      { "recipient": "did:sov:C805sNYhMrjHiqZDTUASHg" }
  ],
  "who_retries"      : "you",
  "impact"           : "message",
  "noticed_time"     : "2019-05-27 18:23:06Z"
}

Categorized Examples of Errors and (current) Best Practice Handling

The following is a categorization of a number of examples of errors and (current) Best Practice handling for those types of errors. The new problem-report message type is used for some of these categories, but not all.

Unknown Error

Errors of a known error code will be processed according to the understanding of what the code means. Support of a protocol includes support and proper processing of the error codes detailed within that protocol.

Any unknown error code that starts with w. in the DIDComm v2 style may be considered a warning, and the flow of the active protocol SHOULD continue. All other unknown error codes SHOULD be considered to be an end to the active protocol.

Error While Processing a Received Message

An Agent Message sent by a Sender and received by its intended Recipient cannot be processed.

Examples:

  • An error occurs in the processing of the message (e.g. missing required parameters, bad data in parameters, etc.)
  • The recipient has no message handler for the message type
  • A message request is rejected because of a policy
  • "Access denied" scenarios

The Recipient should send the Sender a problem-report Agent Message detailing the issue.

The last example deserves an additional comment about whether there should be a response sent at all. Particularly in cases where trust in the message sender is low (e.g. when establishing the connection), an Agent may not want to send any response to a rejected message as even a negative response could reveal correlatable information. That said, if a response is provided, the problem-report message type should be used.

Error While Routing A Message

An Agent in the routing flow of getting a message from a Sender to the Agent Message Recipient cannot route the message.

Examples:

  • Unknown "To" destination for the message
  • Insufficient resources (disk space, network access)
  • Unable to decrypt the message

If the Sender is known to the Agent having the problem, send a problem-report Agent Message detailing at least that a blocking issue occurred, and if relevant (such as in the first example), some details about the issue. If the message is valid, and the problem is related to a lack of resources (e.g. the second issue), also send a problem-report message to an escalation point within the domain.

Alternatively, the capabilities described in 0034: Message Tracing could be used to inform others of the fact that an issue occurred.

Messages Triggered about a Transaction

Examples:

  • "You’re asking for more information than we agreed to" or "You’re giving me more than I expected."
  • Couldn’t pay (insufficient funds, payment mechanism is offline…)
  • You violated the terms of service we agreed to, because I see that my info has been leaked.
  • Your credential has been revoked (asynchronous)
  • A is unwilling to consent to the terms and conditions that B proposes.

These types of error scenarios represent a gray error in handling between using the generic problem-report message format, or a message type that is part of the current transaction's message family. For example, the "Your credential has been revoked" might well be included as a part of the (TBD) standard Credentials Exchange message family. The "more information" example might be a generic error across a number of message families and so should trigger a problem-report) or, might be specific to the ongoing thread (e.g. Credential Exchange) and so be better handled by a defined message within that thread and that message family.

The current advice on which to use in a given scenario is to consider how the recipient will handle the message. If the handler will need to process the response in a specific way for the transaction, then a message family-specific message type should be used. If the error is cross-cutting such that a common handler can be used across transaction contexts, then a generic problem-report should be used.

"Current advice" implies that as we gain more experience with Agent To Agent messaging, the recommendations could get more precise.

Messaging Channel Settings

Examples

  • "Please resend so a different one of my agents can read this.", or, "Agent X no longer in service. Use Agent Y instead."
  • A received a message from B that it cannot understand (message garbled, can’t be decrypted, is of an unrecognized type, uses crypto from a library that A doesn’t have, etc)
  • A wants to report to B that it believes A has been hacked, or that it is under attack
  • A wants to report to B that it believes B has been hacked, or that it is under attack
  • Version incompatibilities of various kinds (transport version incompatibilities [http 1.1 vs. 2.0]; agent message type version incompatibilities)

These types of messages might or might not be triggered during the receipt and processing of a message, but either way, they are unrelated to the message and are really about the communication channel between the entities. In such cases, the recommended approach is to use a (TBD) standard message family to notify and rectify the issue (e.g. change the attributes of a connection). The definition of that message family is outside the scope of this RFC.

Timeouts

A special generic class of errors that deserves mention is the timeout, where a Sender sends out a message and does not receive back a response in a given time. In a distributed environment such as Agent to Agent messaging, these are particularly likely - and particularly difficult to handle gracefully. The potential reasons for timeouts are numerous:

  • loss of connectivity
  • resource errors with one of the Agents between the Sender and Receiver
  • not yet detected key rotations (cached DIDDocs and encryption keys)
  • errors occurring in an Agent unaware of the Sender (so cannot notify the sender of the issue)
  • Recipient offline for an extended period
  • disinterest on the part of the Recipient (received, but no response sent back)

Appropriate timeout handling is extremely contextual, with two key parameters driving the handling - the length of the waiting period before triggering the timeout and the response to a triggered timeout.

The time to wait for a response should be dynamic by at least type of message, and ideally learned through experience. Messages requiring human interaction should have an inherently longer timeout period than a message expected to be handled automatically. Beyond that, it would be good for Agents to track response times by message type (and perhaps other parameters) and adjust timeouts to match observed patterns.

When a timeout is received there are three possible responses, handled automatically or based on feedback from the user:

  • Wait longer
  • Retry
  • Give up

An automated "wait longer" response might be used when first interacting with a particular message type or identity, as the response cadence is learned.

If the decision is to retry, it would be good to have support in areas covered by other RFCs. First, it would be helpful (and perhaps necessary) for the threading decorator to support the concept of retries, so that a Recipient would know when a message is a retry of an already sent message. Next, on "forward" message types, Agents might want to know that a message was a retry such that they can consider refreshing DIDDoc/encryption key cache before sending the message along. It could also be helpful for a retry to interact with the Tracing facility so that more information could be gathered about why messages are not getting to their destination.

Excessive retrying can exacerbate an existing system issue. If the reason for the timeout is because there is a "too many messages to be processed" situation, then sending retries simply makes the problem worse. As such, a reasonable backoff strategy should be used (e.g. exponentially increasing times between retries). As well, a strategy used at Uber is to flag and handle retries differently from regular messages. The analogy with Uber is not pure - that is a single-vendor system - but the notion of flagging retries such that retry messages can be handled differently is a good approach.

Caveat: Problem Report Loops

Implementers should consider and mitigate the risk of an endless loop of error messages. For example:

  • Alice sends a message to Bob that Bob doesn't recognize. Bob sends a Problem Report message to Alice.
  • Alice doesn't understand the message from Bob and sends a Problem Report to Bob.
  • Bob doesn't understand the message from Alice and sends a Problem Report to Alice. And so on...

How agents mitigate the risk of this problem is implementation specific, balancing loop-tracking overhead versus the likelihood of occurrence. For example, an agent implementation might have a counter on a connection object that is incremented when certain types of Problem Report messages are sent on that connection, and reset when any other message is sent. The agent could stop sending those types of Problem Report messages after the counter reaches a given value.

Reference

TBD

Drawbacks

In many cases, a specific problem-report message is necessary, so formalizing the format of the message is also preferred over leaving it to individual implementations. There is no drawback to specifying that format now.

As experience is gained with handling distributed errors, the recommendations provided in this RFC will have to evolve.

Rationale and alternatives

The error type specification mechanism builds on the same approach used by the message type specifications. It's possible that additional capabilities could be gained by making runtime use of the error type specification - e.g. for the broader internationalization of the error messages.

The main alternative to a formally defined error type format is leaving it to individual implementations to handle error notifications, which will not lead to an effective solution.

Prior art

A brief search was done for error handling in messaging systems with few useful results found. Perhaps the best was the Uber article referenced in the "Timeout" section above.

Unresolved questions

Implementations

The following lists the implementations (if any) of this RFC. Please do a pull request to add your implementation. If the implementation is open source, include a link to the repo or to the implementation within the repo. Please be consistent in the "Name" field so that a mechanical processing of the RFCs can generate a list of all RFCs supported by an Aries implementation.

Name / Link Implementation Notes
RFC 0036: Issue Credential Protocol The problem-report message is adopted by this protocol. MISSING test results
RFC 0037: Present Proof Protocol The problem-report message is adopted by this protocol. MISSING test results
Trinsic.id Commercial mobile and web app built using Aries Framework - .NET MISSING test results