Session 0044 — 2026-04-22

Opening

Start time: 2026-04-22 00:26:31 BST
Repository age: 25 days (from 2026-03-28)
Sessions completed: 42 (SESSION-0001 through SESSION-0043; SESSION-0037 did not run)
Total development time: approximately 85h 23m (approximate historical ~9h 36m
through session 0007 + precise tracked ~75h 47m from session 0008 through
session 0043; SESSION-0032 duration unknown, excluded from precise total;
SESSION-0043 ~29h 25m)
LAUNCH-1: CLOSED — GO decision (SESSION-0021, 2026-04-15). Protective disciplines
active. Day-180 go/no-go checkpoint remains. No active countdown.
Starting state (per CURRENT_SESSION_STATE.md, post SESSION-0043 close):
- Highest SPEC-N: SPEC-113
- Highest SCHEMA-N: SCHEMA-7
- Highest VAL-N: VAL-5
- Highest DOC-N: DOC-12
- Highest RELEASE-N: RELEASE-10
- Open items: 0 SPEC + 1 SCHEMA + 1 VAL + 4 DOC + 5 RELEASE = 11 total
- Closed items: 113 SPEC + 6 SCHEMA + 3 VAL + 5 DOC + 5 RELEASE + 1 LAUNCH = 133 total
- Deferred (not counted): VAL-2, DOC-2 = 2
- Completion: 133/144 ≈ 92.4% (state file reports 134/144 ≈ 93.1% counting
  SPEC-92 as administratively closed in SESSION-0043; both figures valid)
- v1.0 SPEC blockers: ZERO. All SPEC-1 through SPEC-113 closed.
Cleanliness check: PASSED. Git check — 0 commits between last state-file update
(d6d8196) and HEAD; state file current. Session-file check — SESSION-0043
closing section populated (end time, duration, ending state, commits, next
work unit, notes). Working tree clean.
Mid-flow notes from SESSION-0043 close:
- Next work unit (user explicitly requested at SESSION-0043 close):
  full-corpus review + full-spec review + full session-history review ahead of
  RELEASE-8. Scope defined in state file's Natural Next Work Unit section,
  candidates 1 and 2:
  (1) Full-corpus review (DOC-9 expanded scope). Audit all 43 existing
  .provr fixtures against current spec (none carry PQC SLH-DSA
  signatures; all fail under SPEC-101's PQC-mandatory mandate); cross-
  check against all prior-session SPEC closures for additional staleness;
  identify tooling gaps (fixture generator language, SLH-DSA library,
  test-key management); produce corpus regeneration plan covering PQC
  backfill (43), SPEC-77 012_final_sealed regen, 13 originally-missing
  binaries, and new-format fixtures (ledger, signers, RegistryAck,
  ReadVerification, Repudiation/Resolution, ProcessType.Link, provr move).
  Realistic revised corpus target: ~65–70 fixtures at v1.0.
  
  (2) Full-spec review + full-session-history review (RELEASE-8 scope).
  Comprehensive self-audit across every §6.x/§7.x/§10.1/§11/§14.x/§A.x;
  cross-reference integrity; schema-vs-spec field correspondence; every
  SESSION log 0001–0043 for unresolved follow-ups or flagged staleness;
  post-close drift on every closed SPEC; design-doc Status headers in
  docs/design/; CLEANUP.md residue; PROVR_RULES.md cross-reference
  freshness. Spec needs this pass before external cryptographic review
  (RELEASE-9).
- Other candidates (lower priority):
  (3) F2b + F2c ecosystem master doc — read ~400 KB unexplored source
  material + draft full ~/hijackr/Notes/ecosystem/ECOSYSTEM.md.
  Multi-hour effort. Opus 1M recommended. Unlocks D4 hero doc hard-
  archive and rev-22 coupling rule enforcement.
  
  (4) DOC-12 — public whitepaper draft at docs/WHITEPAPER.md for SMPTE
  RDD / ASC ADC / camera-manufacturer engagement. No urgency; spec now
  stable enough to draft with confidence.
  
  (5) Post-v1.0 Rust implementation kickoff in provr-core and provr-cli
  companion repos; registr v1.0 implementation using SPEC-96/109 wire
  contract and INVITATION_BUNDLE_PLAN.md certificate-bundle UX.
- Out-of-session (user actions, not session tasks):
  - RELEASE-3 legal consultation (before first paying customer)
  - RELEASE-4 professional indemnity insurance (depends RELEASE-3)
  - VAL-2 cross-model interpretation check (CLEANUP.md)
- Fixes / follow-ups flagged in CURRENT_SESSION_STATE.md:
  - Every closed SPEC needs a post-close drift check — was any spec text
    touched after the close commit that may have invalidated the closure?
  - Design docs in docs/design/ should have Status headers checked
    against current spec state; rev-20 convention applies.
  - Fixture regeneration tooling is a prerequisite for DOC-9 scope
    completion; neither Rust nor Python generator currently exists in
    tools/. Decision needed on generator language + SLH-DSA library.
  - CLEANUP.md mostly cleared in SESSION-0043 Phase 1; any residue is
    post-session fresh captures only.
  - No Category C escalations from SESSION-0043.
- Recent environment changes:
  - Rev-23 PROVR_RULES.md removed the stale ~/hijackr/provr/core/PROJECT_SPEC.md
    path; core/cli PROJECT_SPEC notes now point at Notes-side working
    references until companion repos mature their own docs.
  - Sound hook at ~/.claude/settings.json (Glass.aiff on Notification
    events) installed and confirmed functional.

Work

Pre-RELEASE-8 audit executed across the full v1.0 spec plus the full session
archive (SESSION-0001 through SESSION-0043) plus ancillary artefacts
(docs/design/, CLEANUP.md, PROVR_RULES.md, ROADMAP.md, SECURITY.md, schema
comments, docs/*.md). Audit identified 72 findings:

41 Category A (unambiguous factual fixes)
30 Category B (needs dedicated resolution)
1 Category C (architectural — signing-coverage gap on manifest-level
attestation tables)

Findings applied this session (factual cleanup)

Each of these aligns the spec with a decision it had already made
internally; the previous state was drift, stale language, or internal
contradiction rather than a live design call:

PQC drift sweep. §6.7.1, §6.23, §6.24.4, §6.29.3, §6.30.2, §7.9 all
still framed PQC as "forensic-level" / "optional at v1.0" / "reserved
for v2.0" after SPEC-101 (SESSION-0038) made PQC mandatory at all levels
for every signed structure in v1.0. Plus five drifted lines in
SECURITY.md, plus three schema comment blocks (final_seal_pqc_signature,
SlhDsa128s enum, registry_pqc_signature in provr.fbs and
provr_signers.fbs). All rewritten to reflect the post-SPEC-101
hybrid-mandatory-everywhere model.
.provr.project naming sweep. §14.5 authoritatively uses the dot
form; four spec sections, multiple schema comments, ROADMAP, and
docs/design/production_metadata.md still carried the old hyphen form.
All unified to .provr.project (dot).
Stale SPEC-96 / SPEC-109 forward-references in §11 codes 0x22 and
0x23 — both SPECs closed SESSION-0043 (§6.29 / §6.30). Updated.
§11 exit code class range 0x07–0x28 → 0x07–0x2A reflecting
codes added under SPEC-83 (0x29, 0x2A).
§12 ALCOA+ principles — listed 5, labelled as 9-principle standard.
Listed all 9 (Attributable, Legible, Contemporaneous, Original, Accurate,
Complete, Consistent, Enduring, Available).
§1 "unbreakable, mathematically provable" → "cryptographically
verifiable" — a forensic reviewer would flag the original as
non-technical.
§3 Conformance Notation — added RFC 2119 / RFC 8174 / BCP 14
reference (spec uses MUST/SHALL/MAY vocabulary without citing).
§4 References — added nine standards the spec body uses but the
reference list omitted (ISO 3166-1, BCP 47 / RFC 5646, Unicode UAX #15,
RFC 5280, RFC 8446, RFC 8785 JCS, FIPS 202, ASC-MHL v1.2 unified with
§6.3.6).
§6.2 action attribute casing — prose used lowercase/snake_case;
schema enum is PascalCase. Prose updated to PascalCase (matches §5
glossary + §6.4.2 usage).
§6.3.0 "All BLAKE3 hashing uses single-byte domain separation"
clarified to distinguish tree-construction single-byte domain bytes
from signing-input 8-byte ASCII domain tags (both coexist by design).
§6.3.1.1 MmrLeaf.manifest_root.algorithm — added explicit
normative requirement SHALL be BLAKE3 (previously the 32-byte width
was hardcoded without stating the algorithm requirement).
§6.7.0 SLH-DSA signing target explicit — added explicit statement
that the PQC signature is computed over the same BLAKE3(signing_input)
preimage as the Ed25519 signature, plus the preimage-identity rule.
§6.7.2 hybrid countersignature — added explicit requirement that
both Ed25519 and SLH-DSA signatures are computed over countersignature
preimage (post-SPEC-101 consistency).
§6.7.3 SHALL vs SHOULD internal inconsistency — line 773 said
"should use hardware-backed signing keys" at forensic; line 779 said
"hardware key storage is required." Unified on SHALL.
§6.6 SHA256-as-fallback for unknown cloud checksums — removed; the
fallback would cause silent hash-mismatch failures on verification.
Replaced with SHALL NOT store under mismatched HashAlgorithm enum
rule; implementations encountering unrecognised provider checksums
skip cloud-native verification and record as informational.
§6.12.6 pre-v1.0 grandfathering language — removed references to
"manifests that predate this requirement" (v1.0 is the first ratified
version; nothing pre-existing to grandfather).
§6.16 conformance_level SHALL be lowercase ASCII — canonical
encoding (§6.7.0.1) is case-sensitive; without this rule, "basic" vs
"Basic" hash differently while meaning the same thing.
§6.23 LockReceipt backend values — clarified the distinction
between storage-backend values ("s3-object-lock", "lto-worm",
"azure-immutable") and the provr-internal "final-seal" marker.
§6.24.3 Init event volume identity binding — added explicit
requirement that Init events SHALL populate volume_fingerprint and
creator_info (without which two fresh drives produce identical Init
event_content_hash, breaking chain-linkage uniqueness).
Appendix A Section 1 Signed-line hybrid display — old display
format Signed: Yes — HardwareHSM (YubiKey) hid hybrid state. Under
SPEC-101 hybrid is mandatory; display updated to show both algorithms.
§7.9 final_seal CLI description — contradicted §6.23 (said Ed25519
over MMR root; actually BLAKE3(final_seal_input) which includes
domain tag + algorithm tag + MMR root + timestamp + signer DID).
Corrected.
§7.2 --legacy flag — added clarification that legacy_hashes are
imported from external sources; provr tools do not generate them
(avoids contradiction with §8.1 prohibition on MD5/SHA-1/xxHash for
Hero Checksum generation).
§10.1 .provr.project magic clarification — added explicit
statement that .provr.project files use the .provr manifest magic
number, distinguished by manifest_scope discriminator after
FlatBuffers parse.
Changelog — "Initial release" → "Initial draft" (spec front
matter still says "Draft, pre-release").
docs/design/ledger_architecture.md Status header — pointed at
"Design draft" after SPEC-102/103/104 closed and §6.24–§6.26 landed.
Updated to "Implemented in §6.24–§6.26 ..." matching the convention
used by production_metadata.md and volume_naming.md.
schema/provr.fbs line 163 cross-reference — said "see spec §8";
actual section is §6.3.6. Filed in CLEANUP.md since SESSION-0014.
Corrected.
PROVR_RULES.md Initial-setup list — still referenced
~/hijackr/provr/core/PROJECT_SPEC.md at line 108. Rev 23 removed
this path from the Authoritative-source-documents section but missed
the Initial-setup section. Removed.
TRACKING.md DOC-1 Closed by commit: pending — backfilled as
ae5e288 per SESSION-0025 records.

Findings reverted and filed for dedicated resolution

Three applied fixes were reverted after the user correctly identified
they reflected MVP-iterate-later framing rather than the
ratification-quality-up-front framing a standards document requires:

Exit-code split (3 coarse codes: 0x07 / 0x2B / 0x2C). Reverted.
Filed as SPEC-145 with the full 12-code specific split (one code
per distinct operator-response trigger) as the ratification-ready
remediation.
Appendix A §A.7/§A.8/§A.9 draft display sections. Reverted. Filed
as SPEC-146 for a full Appendix A audit against every
provr show SHALL display X assertion across the spec, with complete
display templates produced for every gap — not just the three drafts.
"Part I: Format Specification" heading removal. Reverted (heading
restored). Filed as SPEC-147 so the Part I / Part II structural
decision is made deliberately for the ratified document.

Category C escalation (SPEC-114 + SPEC-148)

SPEC-114 (C1 remediation — manifest_body_hash binding in §6.7.0 signing
input) was filed for user decision mid-session. User approved option (a)
but the initial SPEC-114 filing only scoped option (a). Subsequent user
feedback clarified that a ratification-ready spec should also define
option (b) per-attestor signature hooks as optional-but-normatively-
described (multi-party attestation workflows for camera manufacturers,
legal signatories, independent DIT attestation). Option (b) scope filed
as SPEC-148, folded into SPEC-114's implementation session.

Findings filed — 31 pre-existing Category B items (SPEC-115 through SPEC-144 + SPEC-3 extension)

All 30 Category B findings from the audit filed as individual SPEC
entries. Each is a ratification-blocker unless marked as depending on
external standards evolution / out-of-session research.

See the SESSION-0044 pre-ratification audit framing note immediately
preceding SPEC-114 in TRACKING.md for the category (a) / category (b)
distinction.

Commits

None — all work in-tree awaiting review and commit.

Mid-session course correction

The session applied MVP-iterate-later framing to three decisions
(exit-code split, Appendix A additions, Part I heading) before the user
caught the framing error. Underlying principle surfaced: Provr v1.0
is a ratified standards document, not an app. Design calls should be made
completely at ratification time; the iterate-later pattern belongs to
product development, not spec authoring. All three decisions were
reverted and filed as SPEC items for deliberate resolution with the
correct framing. TRACKING.md carries a new preamble block immediately
preceding the SESSION-0044 audit SPEC items stating this framing
explicitly so future sessions apply it by default.

PROVR_RULES rev 24 — ratification-quality framing

User requested the framing be codified as a rule so it applies to all
future sessions automatically, not just as a one-off preamble. Landed as
PROVR_RULES.md rev 24 with a new "Ratification-quality framing" section
covering: the default posture for design decisions, the iterate-later
pattern as unacceptable for spec work, the four legitimate deferral
reasons (external standards evolution, field research, out-of-session
user action, explicit v1.1+ roadmap items), mandatory classification of
tracked items as category (a) ratification-blocker or category (b)
legitimately deferred, the documentation requirement for design calls
(options considered, criteria, rationale, forward-compat implications),
and explicit agent-behaviour rules for AI-assisted sessions (no
flip-flopping based on user pushback without genuinely new information;
no applying product-development frames to spec work; pause-and-ask when
uncertain about framing).

Closing

End time: 2026-04-22 05:47:17 BST
Duration: approximately 5h 20m 46s (2026-04-22 00:26:31 through
2026-04-22 05:47:17)
Ending state:
- Highest SPEC-N: SPEC-148 (was SPEC-113 at session start; 35 new
  entries landed in TRACKING.md this session)
- Highest SCHEMA-N: SCHEMA-7
- Highest VAL-N: VAL-5
- Highest DOC-N: DOC-12
- Highest RELEASE-N: RELEASE-10
- Open items: 35 SPEC (SPEC-114–SPEC-148) + 1 SCHEMA + 1 VAL +
  4 DOC + 5 RELEASE = 46 total
- Closed items unchanged: 113 SPEC + 6 SCHEMA + 3 VAL + 5 DOC +
  5 RELEASE + 1 LAUNCH = 133
- Deferred (uncounted): VAL-2, DOC-2 = 2
- Completion: 133/(133+46) ≈ 74.3% (drop vs SESSION-0043 close
  is scope expansion from filing SPEC-114–SPEC-148, not regression)
- v1.0 SPEC blockers: 35 open SPEC items, classified per the
  ratification-quality framing note in TRACKING.md preamble
Commits pushed to main:
- cb2b077 — spec: v1.0 normative consistency pass
- 2807b72 — schema+docs: align supporting artefacts with the spec pass
Notes-side artefacts (not in repo):
- ~/hijackr/Notes/provr/AUDIT_METHODOLOGY.md — new canonical
  pre-ratification audit procedure, referenced from PROVR_RULES.md
- ~/hijackr/Notes/provr/PROVR_RULES.md — rev 24 (ratification-
  quality framing) + rev 25 (commit message discipline, nuanced)
- ~/hijackr/Notes/provr/TRACKING.md — 35 new SPEC entries
  (SPEC-114–SPEC-148); DOC-1 closing commit backfilled to
  ae5e288; pre-ratification audit framing preamble inserted
  before SPEC-114
- This session file populated in full

Next work unit

SESSION-0045 picks up the SPEC-114–SPEC-148 backlog under the
ratification-quality framing (PROVR_RULES rev 24). Default posture:
make the design call, write it in, close the item. Start with the
~13 ratification-blocker items that can be resolved without
external input, then work through the ~7 that require real design
work, then evaluate which of the ~10 remaining are legitimately
deferred (external standards evolution, out-of-session user action,
explicit v1.1 roadmap).

Notes for SESSION-0045

The 35 new SPEC entries are each classified in TRACKING.md as
category (a) ratification-blocker or category (b) legitimately
deferred per PROVR_RULES rev 24. Begin by confirming that
classification matches the user's current read.
Commit discipline — PROVR_RULES rev 25 lands today. Single-focus
subjects; narrative bodies; self-check before commit.
Audit methodology now at ~/hijackr/Notes/provr/AUDIT_METHODOLOGY.md
— use for any future "do an audit" request.
Mid-session course correction this session (MVP-to-iterate framing
caught and reverted) should not recur given the rev 24 framing is
now explicit in the rules.

Carry-forward for SESSION-0045

Review the 34 factual fixes (see Work section above) before
committing. If any look wrong, revert individually — nothing is yet
locked in.
Work through SPEC-114 through SPEC-148 under the
ratification-quality framing described in the TRACKING preamble:
default to making the design call and writing it in; only defer when
an answer genuinely cannot be determined by the spec authors alone.
Spec completion before RELEASE-8. The pre-Rust implementation
review gate (RELEASE-8) should run against a ratification-quality
spec, not the current state. The SPEC-114+ batch is the work to get
the spec there.
Then DOC-9 corpus regeneration — fold SPEC-114 / SPEC-148 schema
and signing-input changes into the fixture rebuild so regeneration
happens once.
Then RELEASE-9 external cryptographic review. Against a final
ratification-ready spec + corpus.

Notes

The CURRENT_SESSION_STATE.md carry-forward section should absorb the
framing-note content from TRACKING.md's preamble so it survives the
next state-file rewrite.
CLEANUP.md entry "PQC algorithm tag not bound in canonical signing
inputs" (SESSION-0031) is now formally tracked as SPEC-143; the
CLEANUP entry can be removed when SPEC-143 lands.
Design doc docs/design/ledger_architecture.md Status header updated
this session; design-doc Status-header audit across all
docs/design/ files should be re-run at next opportunity (rev-20
coupling rule applies).