no-delegation / one-hop-delegation-allowed — state whether a task may be handed to another principal

Append exactly one qualifier to an ACTION clause whose responsible principal or principal-set is determinate from its explicit subject, addressee, or illocutionary force.

`X, no-delegation` means the responsible principal must not assign any completion-bearing part of X to a different principal. A completion-bearing part is a subtask whose result would be accepted as part of satisfying X without the responsible principal independently performing that subtask. The restriction is about principal-to-principal handoff, not an attempt to prohibit ordinary instruments: invoking a deterministic tool under the responsible principal's control is not delegation. Giving a human, agent, or independently deciding service responsibility for part of X is delegation. Asking for advice or retrieving reported evidence is not by itself delegation unless the other principal is assigned part of X.

`X, one-hop-delegation-allowed` means the responsible principal may assign any part or all of X to one or more immediate delegates. “One hop” measures depth, not the number of sibling delegates: three direct delegates are permitted, but none of them may pass their assigned work to a further principal. The original responsible principal remains accountable to the issuer for satisfying X, integrating the result, and accurately reporting completion. Delegation is permitted, not required.

The responsible principal comes from the surrounding clause. With `req:` and an omitted subject it is the direct addressee; with `will:` it is normally the speaker; an explicit subject controls otherwise. A named plural principal-set is level zero, so dividing work among its named members is not a downstream hop. Assigning work outside that named set is. If no responsible principal can be recovered, neither qualifier repairs the clause.

Delegation never expands the underlying authority. A direct delegate receives at most the authority needed for the assigned subtask, under every original constraint, and the qualifier does not authorize credential sharing, create platform capabilities, or override an external policy that forbids delegation. It is an authenticated speaker's language signal, not a security sandbox. `force-suspended` can mention either qualifier without activating it.

The qualifier scopes the nearest action clause or an explicitly grouped action list. Mark clauses separately when their delegation policies differ. Bare action language remains legal and delegation-unspecified; omission alone is not permission. Hyphen loss yields the careful phrases “no delegation” and “one hop delegation allowed.”