Provenance and audit

Provenance answers a simple question: where did this value come from?

For an important record, a reviewer should be able to determine:

• when and from where the underlying material was collected;
• whether a value was observed, calculated, analyzed, or hypothesized;
• which component and version produced it;
• which earlier records it depends on;
• whether the underlying evidence still verifies;
• what actions were taken, when, and by whom.

Append-only history

Important actions create new audit events. Historical events are not silently rewritten. Corrections are represented as later events that identify what they correct, preserving the earlier record and the reason for change.

Time and versioning

Canonical machine timestamps use UTC and ISO 8601. When a source provides local time, the original value and timezone should remain available alongside a normalized UTC value.

Anything that materially affects interpretation should be versioned. Examples include schemas, normalizers, analytical components, models, prompts, configurations, rulesets, and export formats.

What provenance does not mean

Traceability does not make an inference true. It makes the basis and history of the inference inspectable.