What stops an agent from giving itself more permissions?

Arithmetic, not policy. A grant is checked against its parent at issue time and again at every verification, so a chain that widens anywhere fails as a whole rather than at the offending link. An agent can mint children freely and none of them can exceed it.

The artifact that settles it
/spec/errors · chain_widened
↑ delegated authority→ the definition lens · gda.group↓ the verifier