_model: devlog-entry
---
schema_version: 1
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title: Formalizing the provenance contract
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date: 2026-07-18
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author: Christopher Chambers
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summary: The provenance design advanced from a normative architecture into versioned schemas, fixtures, verification vectors, and canonical assertion envelopes.
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tags: provenance, JSON Schema, verification, v0.4.0
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source_commit: cb36bbc95895244f067934adc3531e733c0950db
---
body:

Thinkloom's provenance goals require more than an activity timeline. The system
needs stable records, explicit retention rules, deterministic verification, and
a way to describe contribution relationships without making unsupported claims
about authorship.

The Stage 1 work documented the normative architecture and state machines. The
Stage 2 package then introduced JSON Schema contracts, valid and invalid
fixtures, canonicalization and event-chain vectors, release Merkle construction,
key-rotation cases, and verification statuses.

Version 0.4.0 extended that foundation with immutable provenance assertions,
point-in-time evaluations, semantic registries, independent confidence
dimensions, evidence classes, stable reason codes, and deterministic dependency
invalidation vectors.

The schema package is a formal design and test contract. The current native
writer must not be described as conforming until the later implementation and
fault-injection stages are complete.

[View the v0.4.0 commit](https://git.labyricorn.com/Labyricorn/thinkloom-openai-hackathon/commit/cb36bbc95895244f067934adc3531e733c0950db)