Reference
Translation: dev / auditor / spec
The same nouns and verbs, said three ways: the word you'd reach for talking to a developer, the phrase an auditor would actually trust, and the term the spec defines. Use this page when a word feels like it means two different things in two different places on this site — it probably does, on purpose, and this is the decoder.
Nouns
| Concept | Dev | Auditor | Spec |
|---|---|---|---|
| your record | receipt (yours) / capsule | the signed record the producer authored; a self-attested claim until witnessed | capsule (AAC record) |
| the witness artifact | stamp | an independent party's confirmation the record's history existed at a time — never a statement about content | witness countersignature / RFC 9942 Receipt over the checkpoint |
| the log | your log / ledger | the producer's append-only history; tamper-evident by construction | CLL (Checkpointed Local Log, MMR) |
| the commitment | checkpoint (“the 32 bytes”) | one signed value committing the entire history to date | CLL checkpoint (COSE_Sign1) |
| the witnessing party | witness (“the notary”) | the party that makes the log checkable by a stranger | witness / Transparency Service (SCITT) |
| an action's account | proof (of an action) | the signed membership claim: which records constitute one action | composition capsule |
| foreign bytes brought in | carry / received | someone else's already-signed record, committed as-transmitted | as-transmitted CPB binding |
| the hand-over file | bundle | digests + proofs + stamps; proves integrity/order/completeness, carries no content | bundle |
| content release | disclose | a deliberate, recorded release of content to a named audience; itself logged | disclosure record |
Verbs
| You type | Dev | Auditor | Spec |
|---|---|---|---|
seal(payload) | “make a provable record” | mints a signed, logged, cadence-witnessed record | canonicalize (CPB) → sign → append (CLL) → checkpoint |
received(bytes, type=) | “bring in someone else's signed record” | localizes a foreign signed artifact as-transmitted | as-transmitted carry |
compose([...]) | “bind these into one account” | membership claim over cited records; asserts nothing new | composition capsule |
bundle | “the file I hand a stranger” | assembles the offline-verifiable proof package | bundle assembly |
disclose | “share the content, on the record” | releases selected content to an audience + logs the act | disclosure record + payloads |
verify | “check any of it, offline” | recomputes signatures, inclusion, checkpoint-chain consistency; grades honestly | scitt-cose verification |
status | “where's everything on the ladder” | ladder position + witnessing lag per record | ladder + lag render |
report (plugin) | “the number, with the denominator” | coverage with honest denominators; model-assisted rows labeled, never blended | rollup evaluation |
The ladder — three rungs, no more
| Rung | Dev | Auditor | Spec |
|---|---|---|---|
| self-attested | “signed by me” | record integrity by the producer's key alone; no third-party confirmation | attestation_mode=self_attested |
| witnessed | “an independent log confirmed it existed” | existence + order + completeness checkable without trusting the producer | witnessed checkpoint (≥1 valid stamp) |
| countersigned | “someone else vouched” | a non-producer's signed claim citing the record | counterparty / operator countersignature |
There is no fourth rung. A record you'll sometimes see called “registered” as if it were a step between self-attested and witnessed is not a separate assurance level — it's still self-attested until an independent witness has actually confirmed it. See witness anywhere for how you move a record up this ladder.
The honesty rows
This is the auditor register's spine — the claims this project will not round up, anywhere:
- A witnessed record is not a true record. The stamp attests existence/order/completeness, never accuracy.
- A derived verdict is not an adjudicated one.
verifynever grades up: absence ≠ forgery, unsigned ≠ invalid. - Coverage is the range, not the population.
- Registration ≠ Receipt ≠ Witnessing. Registration is the act, a Receipt is what the service returns, witnessing is a party co-signing the checkpoint so the log can't equivocate. “Anchor” is avoided as a verb (it collides with “trust anchor”).
Why this page exists: the same underlying mechanism reads differently to the person wiring it into their agent, the person deciding whether to trust it, and the person implementing it from the spec text. Using the wrong register in the wrong place is how documentation quietly overclaims — this table is the check.