Control 2.17: Cross-Tenant Agent Federation - Troubleshooting
Common issues and resolution steps for cross-tenant Agent ID trust, MCP attestation, multi-tenant publishing, supervisory observability, and termination.
Common Issues
Issue 1: Inbound Agent Trust From an Unapproved Tenant
- Symptoms: CTAP partner list shows an external tenant that has not been cleared under Control 1.10.
- Resolution: Suspend the partner, snapshot the configuration, and route through vendor-risk review before reinstating.
Issue 2: MCP Federated Server Lacks Signed Attestation
- Symptoms: A registered MCP server reports
attestationStatusother thansigned. - Resolution: Treat the registration as un-attested; restrict invocations and require the operating tenant to provide a signed attestation before further use.
Issue 3: Copilot Studio Agent Reaches an Unsanctioned Tenant
- Symptoms: Publishing-target export shows a receiving tenant not on the approved list.
- Resolution: Remove the unsanctioned target from the publishing list, capture an evidence snapshot, and confirm the receiving tenant has uninstalled the agent.
Issue 4: Supervisory Reconstruction Misses Cross-Tenant Activity
- Symptoms: Supervision review cannot reconstruct an invocation involving an external tenant.
- Resolution: Validate that unified audit logging is enabled and that the cross-tenant operation set in the PowerShell setup matches the operations Microsoft has published. Add any newly published operations and rerun.
Issue 5: Residual Trust After Relationship Termination
- Symptoms: Termination drill or post-termination review finds residual Entra trust, MCP registration, or Copilot Studio installation.
- Resolution: Execute the termination playbook end-to-end, document each removal, and update the playbook to capture the missed step.
Issue 6: Data-Residency Attestation Conflicts With Cross-Tenant Path
- Symptoms: External tenant's signed attestation lists processing regions outside the firm's approved data-residency boundary.
- Resolution: Suspend the trust pending compliance review; do not reinstate without an updated attestation or a documented exception approved by the data-residency owner.
Diagnostic Steps
- Snapshot CTAP defaults and partner list; reconcile to the third-party register.
- Cross-check MCP attestation status against the on-file attestations.
- Reconcile publishing-target lists against the approved receiving-tenant list.
- Re-run the cross-tenant audit pull and validate operation coverage.
- Execute the termination playbook against a controlled test partner.
Escalation
| Severity | Condition | Escalation Path |
|---|---|---|
| Low | Documentation gap in cross-tenant inventory | Governance analyst |
| Medium | Un-attested MCP server or unsanctioned publishing target | Identity admin and compliance lead |
| High | Confirmed inbound Agent trust to unapproved tenant, or supervisory-reconstruction gap | CISO delegate, compliance lead, M365 admin |
| Critical | Customer NPI confirmed flowing to or from an unapproved external tenant | CISO, compliance officer, incident-response lead |
Related Resources
FSI Copilot Governance Framework v1.4.0 - April 2026 - Back to Control 2.17