evidence-provenance

Evidence Provenance

A second artifact is not a second proof. Count loops, not files.

Owns one invariant: evidence produced by the same reasoning loop as the artifact it validates is one evidentiary loop, unless something outside that loop can falsify it. It does not reject creator-authored tests, require a human reviewer, require several models, or force an expensive or unavailable gate.

Triggers

is this independent evidence, did the reviewer confirm this, closed loop, count the confirmations, which checks actually ran

The invariant

agent reads requirement R
   +--> writes implementation I
   +--> writes new test T from the same reading

I + T  = useful evidence about I
I + T != two independent confirmations of R

Creator tests stay valid. They answer "does I do what I was written to do". They cannot answer "was R read correctly", because both artifacts inherit one reading.

Process

1. List the claim and the artifact. Name the artifact, its revision, and the premises it was built from (the reading of R, the generator, the fixture source).

2. Record each piece of evidence with its lineage. The fields and their values are in references/lineage-model.md. Two rules decide most cases:

   • Shared premise or inheritance joins the subject's loop. A reviewer who is handed the implementer's conclusion, or an expected output made by the implementation's generator, is in that loop whatever agent produced it.
   • Lineage you cannot state is lineage you cannot count. An item with no recorded premises is never independent.

3. Classify. Write the record as JSON and run:

   python3 "${COPILOT_PLUGIN_ROOT:-${CLAUDE_PLUGIN_ROOT:-.claude}}/skills/evidence-provenance/scripts/classify_lineage.py" <record.json>
   

   An item whose bound_to names a different artifact or revision is always rejected (binding-mismatch), not downgraded. Add --promotion when the evidence gates a deployment: every item then also needs a bound_to with artifact, revision, validator, command, and result, or it is rejected as binding-missing.

4. Read the verdict.