Leaf Operation Intents

Internet-Draft	LOI	September 2025
Kohbrok	Expires 2 April 2026	[Page]

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1. Introduction

To leave an MLS group, a member cannot create a commit, but rather has to propose its own removal. This can create difficulties, some of which have been solved by the introduction of the SelfRemove proposal, which may be included in external commits.¶

One drawback of Remove and SelfRemove proposals is that they (like other proposals) are bound to a specific group epoch. This means that authors of such proposals must have an up-to-date group state to send such a proposal and continue to keep track of that group state both to re-send the proposal if necessary.¶

This can be a problem if an application wants to cleanly leave a group and immediately delete the associated group state, e.g., to erase the associated metadata. The deletion of the group state makes it impossible for the client to re-send the proposal in case it's not covered by the next commit. Similarly, the client might be offline at the time and the group state might not be up-to-date.¶

The LeafOperationIntent specified in this document allows a client to bind an intent to leave a group to the leaf's current state. That intent can then be proposed by any party (e.g. an external sender) in any subsequent epoch, provided the leaf remains unchanged¶

As users often have more than one client that needs to be removed from the group as part of the user leaving, the intent allows expanding the leaf operation to associated leaves.¶

2. LeafOperationIntent

A LeafOperationIntent can be created by clients and distributed either to other group members or to one or more external senders.¶

HashReference LeafNodeRef;

MakeLeafNodeRef(value)
  = RefHash("MLS 1.0 LeafNode Reference", value)

enum {
  reserved(0),
  sender_removal_only(1),
  remove_associated_members(2),
  (255)
} RemovalMode

struct {
  opaque group_id<V>;
  uint32 sender_index;
  LeafNodeRef sender_leaf_ref;
  RemovalMode removal_mode;
} LeafOperationIntentTBS

struct {
  opaque group_id<V>;
  uint32 sender_index;
  LeafNodeRef sender_leaf_ref;
  RemovalMode removal_mode;
  /* SignWithLabel(., "LeafOperationIntentTBS", LeafOperationIntentTBS) */
  opaque signature<V>;
} LeafOperationIntent

struct {
  LeafOperationIntent intent;
} LeafOperationProposal

RefHash and SignWithLabel are as defined in [RFC9420].¶

group_id: The ID of the MLS group in which context the LeafOperationIntent was sent¶
sender_index: The index of the sender's leaf in the group¶
sender_leaf_ref: Hash computed over the LeafNode of the sending client using the MakeLeafNodeRef function¶
removal_mode: Indicates whether only the sender should be removed, or whether additionally any other, associated members should be removed as well.¶
signature: A signature over all fields except the signature itself using the sender's leaf signature key¶

The purpose of the removal_mode is to allow the sender to signal that other members associated with the sender should be removed as part of this operation. This can be useful if the sender is part of a group of associated devices, e.g., multiple devices belonging to the same user, to facilitate the leaving of the entire user as opposed to just the sending client.¶

2.1. Creating and proposing a LeafOperationIntent

A group member creates a LeafOperationIntent by populating the group_id, sender_index and sender_leaf_ref according to the current state of the group and the sender's leaf.¶

If the sender wants to signal the removal of any associated members, it can set the removal_mode accordingly.¶

Finally the sender creates the signature by calling SignWithLabel on the LeafOperationIntentTBS populated as described above with "LeafOperationIntentTBS" as label.¶

Recipients of a LeafOperationIntent can include it in a LeafOperationProposal.¶

2.2. Processing a LeafOperationProposal

Recipients of a LeafOperationProposal MUST perform the following steps on the intent contained in the proposal.¶

Verify that the group_id matches the group in which the proposal was sent¶
Verify that the sender_leaf_ref is the LeafRef of the leaf at the sender_index¶
Verify the signature over the intent using the signature public key in the leaf at the sender_index¶
If removal_mode is remove_associated_members, check with the authentication service (AS, see [RFC9750]) whether any other members of the group are associated with the sender¶

If any of the validation steps fail, the recipient MUST consider the proposal invalid.¶

After that, the proposal MUST be validated and processed as if it were a Remove proposal targeting the sender's leaf.¶

If removal_mode is remove_associated_members, the proposal MUST additionally be validated and processed as if it were a set of Remove proposals targeting the members identified as associated clients by the AS.¶

All Remove proposals MUST be treated as if they originated from the sender of the intent (not the sender of the LeafOperationProposal).¶

External commits may include one or more LeafOperationProposals. Any Removes validated as described above MUST thus be considered valid in this context.¶

Open questions:¶

Do we want to have an MLS wire format for LeafOperationIntent?¶

2.3. Additional AS role

When using LeafOperationIntents, the AS gains the additional role of having to identify other members in a group that are associated with the sender of a LeafOperationIntent.¶

The association could, for example, be that multiple clients belong to the same user. In most cases, the association will be determined by Credentials of the individual group members.¶

3. Security Considerations

In contrast to proposals, LeafOperationIntents are not bound to an epoch and thus remain valid as long as the creator's leaf doesn't change its state.¶

Each LeafOperationIntent can thus be proposed and committed to until the sender is either removed from the group or updates its own leaf.¶

This allows scenarios, where, for example, members get added to or removed from a group in the time between the creation and the proposal of the intent.¶

If a tighter bound to the epoch, i.e. the current group state is required, clients should use regular Remove or SelfRemove proposals instead.¶

Epoch independence incurs a certain risk of replay attacks. The bound of the intent to the hash of the sender's LeafNode limits that risk significantly. However, a replay is possible, for example, if the sender's leaf still contains the LeafNode from a KeyPackage. In that case, if the sender is later added again with the same KeyPackage, the intent can be replayed.¶

4. IANA Considerations

This document requests the addition of a new Proposal Type under the heading of "Messaging Layer Security".¶

The leaf_operation_intent MLS Proposal Type is used to allow members or external senders to convey the intent of a leaf owner to perform an operation on their leaf.¶

Value: TBD¶
Name: leaf_operation_intent¶
Recommended: Y¶
External: Y¶
Path Required: Y¶

5. Normative References

[RFC9420]: Barnes, R., Beurdouche, B., Robert, R., Millican, J., Omara, E., and K. Cohn-Gordon, "The Messaging Layer Security (MLS) Protocol", RFC 9420, DOI 10.17487/RFC9420, July 2023, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9420>.
[RFC9750]: Beurdouche, B., Rescorla, E., Omara, E., Inguva, S., and A. Duric, "The Messaging Layer Security (MLS) Architecture", RFC 9750, DOI 10.17487/RFC9750, April 2025, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9750>.