Replay a task-claim protocol with delayed replies

A yes reply can arrive after the offer it answered has been withdrawn. A sent commitment may also remain unseen by its recipient. Explore those differences with a manual message trace before assuming everyone knows who owns a task. This invented model is not a Kiguri claiming feature, delivery receipt, or distributed-lock guarantee.

Define the actors and the commitment rule

Use one fictional coordinator, reviewers R1 and R2, and task T. The coordinator keeps the authoritative assignment ledger. Each offer has an identifier containing its version, such as T-v1. An offer is a request; acceptance expresses willingness; commitment establishes the model's current assignment.

Under this stipulated rule, a reviewer starts only after receiving the coordinator's commitment for their current accepted offer. Only the coordinator can commit an unwithdrawn current offer. These are exercise assumptions, not facts about your team or permissions granted by a worksheet. Keep each actor's knowledge separately rather than drawing one state that everyone supposedly shares.

Trace the withdrawn offer and its late acceptance

The coordinator sends T-v1 to R1. R1 receives it and sends acceptance, but that acceptance is delayed. Before receiving it, the coordinator withdraws the still-uncommitted offer and issues T-v2 to R2. The ledger now shows v1 withdrawn and v2 current.

R1's acceptance of T-v1 then arrives. It cannot revive v1 under the stated rule. Record the reply's identifier and the coordinator's stale-reply disposition. R1 may not know that withdrawal occurred, but has received no commitment and therefore cannot begin. The distinction between actors' views is part of the exercise, not an inconvenience to remove from the summary.

Commit the current offer and replay duplicates

R2 receives T-v2 and accepts it. When that acceptance arrives, the coordinator verifies that v2 is current and unwithdrawn, records the commitment to R2, and sends the matching commitment message. If R2 receives it, their local record can change from accepted and waiting to committed and able to begin.

Replay a duplicate acceptance of T-v2. The model stipulates that a repeated identical acceptance does not create another assignment. Repeat the matching commitment too: R2 treats it as the same commitment, not another task. Keep this idempotent handling explicit; real channels or products do not automatically provide it merely because the worksheet does.

Withhold a commitment and preserve uncertainty

Reset the v2 exchange and imagine the coordinator sends the commitment but it never reaches R2. The coordinator knows it was issued, not that it was received. R2 knows they accepted the offer but still lacks the required commitment. Record the coordinator's pending-confirmation state and R2's waiting state separately.

Do not reassign T merely because no receipt appeared. That could conflict with a commitment delivered later. A repeated current commitment can be examined in the toy trace, but subsequent reassignment needs a separate agreed cancellation and confirmation rule. The model does not settle every lost-message case or promise eventual delivery.

Check the trace without sending real messages

Keep actor, message identifier, sent event, received event, ledger change, and remaining uncertainty in an ordinary document. Ask another reader to explain why the late v1 yes cannot assign the task and why the withheld v2 commitment leaves R2 waiting.

The finish check is consistent knowledge and ownership under these bounded rules, including explicit uncertainty. No actual messages were sent in the example. Preserve unresolved delivery and reassignment behavior rather than turning a paper rehearsal into proof that a real workspace prevents competing owners.