Emit a machine-readable authority-gate evidence manifest #283

Classification

Release-gate/tooling debt.

Problem

The checkpoint PR body recorded the then-current local test totals. A later review-fix commit added one regression test, so the final reviewed head had 773 total / 761 passed while the PR description still said 772 / 760.

The code and CI were green; the copied evidence was stale. Human-maintained counts and witness summaries should not be treated as authoritative release evidence.

Evidence

• PR #282 contains the earlier 772/760 count.
• Final reviewed head: e663cde8, which added the final runtime-invalid-kind regression witness.
• Gate E — jedit Native Operation Proof already requires pinned operation, bundle, admission, invocation, and trace evidence, but does not define a canonical evidence artifact.
• Slice: Publish causal rope architecture regression suite and docs #254 is the broader architecture regression-suite/documentation slice.

Why it matters

Authority claims need provenance. A count copied into prose has no durable tie to the exact commit, command, generated package, installed operation, or CI attempt that produced it.

Constraints

• The manifest is evidence, not a new authority ledger.
• It must be derived from actual gate executions, never hand-authored to make CI look green.
• It must identify the exact commit and relevant generated/installed artifacts.
• Keep secrets, machine-specific paths, and nondeterministic timestamps out of reproducible digests.
• A failed or skipped required witness must remain visible.

Acceptance criteria

• Define a versioned JSON schema for an authority-gate evidence manifest.
• Record the exact git SHA, command/gate identities, pass/fail/skip totals, and required witness names.
• Record generated package/operation provenance needed to distinguish GraphQL/Wesley compatibility execution from later Edict execution.
• Include Echo receipt/tick evidence only in an opaque, non-secret form appropriate for the witness.
• Make CI emit and retain the manifest as an artifact or check summary.
• Generate any human-readable test-count summary from the manifest rather than copying numbers manually.
• Reject a manifest whose commit SHA or required gate set does not match the build.
• Document how Gate E and Slice: Publish causal rope architecture regression suite and docs #254 consume the artifact.

Related

• Gate E - jedit Native Operation Proof #143 — pinned native-operation proof.
• Slice: Publish causal rope architecture regression suite and docs #254 — regression suite and architecture documentation.
• COOL IDEAS™: add an Echo witness flight recorder #73 — witness flight recorder; runtime traces may be inputs, but the release manifest has a different lifecycle.