Glossary
Precise definitions
Accountability arguments fall apart when terms drift. These definitions are used consistently across every page and every repository.
- AgentProof
The transaction and signed-receipt layer of Proof & State. It binds authority to an exact prepared state, executes consequential actions exactly once with recovery, and emits an independently verifiable signed receipt.
- Admission control
The check DoneState performs before a run starts: the requested outcome must fit inside the declared authority envelope, otherwise the run is refused.
- Attestation
A statement from an independent party that observed state matches a claim. In Proof & State, an attestation from OpsTruth is what allows a DoneState run to close.
- Consequential action
An action whose effects persist outside the agent session — merging, deploying, publishing, mutating data. These are the actions AgentProof wraps in an authorised transaction.
- DoneState
The durable execution and control plane of Proof & State. It admits runs against an authority envelope, enforces budgets, leases and idempotency, records durable state transitions and audit evidence, and cannot verify its own work.
- Exactly-once execution
A guarantee that an authorised transaction commits its effect one time. Retries after partial failure resolve the transaction rather than repeating the effect.
- Idempotency key
An identifier attached to an operation so that a repeated or replayed request converges on the same result instead of producing a second side effect.
- Independence boundary
The architectural line between execution and verification. Components on the execution side may act; components on the verification side may only observe. Nothing crosses it in both directions.
- Lease
A time-bounded hold on a run. While the lease is valid the holder may execute; when it expires or is lost, execution stops rather than continuing in parallel with another worker.
- OpsTruth
The independent read-only verifier of Proof & State. It inspects repository, stack, test, build, CI, secrets, configuration, route, runtime and deployment evidence, and classifies findings as Verified, Risky or Unproven.
- Prepared state
The exact state an action was approved against, captured as a digest. If the real state drifts from the prepared state, the authority no longer applies.
- Proof & State
The umbrella accountability system comprising DoneState, OpsTruth and AgentProof: execution under declared authority, independent read-only verification, and signed receipts for consequential actions.
- Risky
An OpsTruth classification: evidence exists and it indicates a problem or a contradiction between the claim and the observed system.
- Separation of duties
Keeping proposer, authority, executor, signer and verifier as distinct roles so that no single component can both perform an action and vouch for it.
- Signed receipt
A record binding an action, its prepared-state digest, the authority that permitted it and the signing key, verifiable by anyone holding the public key.
- Unproven
An OpsTruth classification: the check could not be evidenced. It is reported as its own outcome rather than being rounded up to a pass or down to a failure.
- Verified
An OpsTruth classification: evidence exists and it supports the claim, bound to the exact commit or artefact inspected.
Give agents authority. Keep the proof.
Shared vocabulary is the cheapest accountability control there is.