provared 0.2.0 → 0.3.0

package/README.md

@@ -2,691 +2,154 @@
 
 Proof of what an AI agent was allowed to do, and what it then did.
 
+A person signs the permission with a passkey. The agent signs a receipt
+for each action. A free checker says whether the agent stayed within the
+permission, and where it did not.
+
 *Evidence, not a verdict.* A record shows what was signed and by which
 keys. People decide what it means.
 
-## Status
-
-**Version 0.2.0, a draft.** Published as it is, by one author in their
-own time; fixes as time allows. The format may still change, so do not
-rely on a draft record staying checkable.
-
-The core of the format is also written as an individual Internet-Draft
-at the IETF:
-[draft-izmaylov-agent-permission-receipts](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-izmaylov-agent-permission-receipts/).
-An Internet-Draft is a working document, not a standard.
-
-## The four parts
-
-| Part | What it is | In this draft |
-|---|---|---|
-| **Slip** | A short permission a person signs with a passkey: which agent, which actions, what limits and conditions, with whom, from when until when, and why | Built |
-| **Stub** | A signed receipt for each action, pointing back to its slip, countersigned by the other side where possible, and approved by the person where the slip asks for it | Built |
-| **Seal** | The stubs chained together and gathered under one top fingerprint, signed by whoever keeps the book and time-stamped by an outside service | Built. A public place where seals are kept is not |
-| **Show** | One page shown to a checker with proof that it is in the book, and when the book was sealed, with the names it does not need kept covered | Built. Only a slip's names and purpose can be covered so far |
-
-## What is here
-
-| Folder | What it holds |
-|---|---|
-| `spec/provared-format.md` | The format, described exactly |
-| `docs/threat-model.md` | Who might attack a record, what each part protects, and what it does not |
-| `src/` | The library: the checker, the writers for every kind of record, the stub writer beside an agent and the connector for an agent's tools. No outside code |
-| `bin/provared-check.mjs` | The checker for the command line |
-| `bin/provared-headers.mjs`, `net/` | A command that fetches the chain of Bitcoin block headers from nodes you name, so that a block time-stamp can be checked with no node of your own. The only code here that makes a network request. Experimental |
-| `page/` | The checking page and the demonstration page |
-| `demo/` | The demonstration: an invented office agent works under a permission and goes outside it four times |
-| `samples/` | A sample record, written once, that the tests keep checking |
-| `tools/` | Three small tools: one wrote the sample record, one writes the checking page as a single file, one writes the shared test files |
-| `test/` | The tests |
-| `test-vectors/` | Shared test files: records and values, each with the answer this library gives. Another implementation of the format can be tested against them |
-| `python/` | The Python version, `pip install provared`, which gives the same answers. See its own [README](python/README.md), and its examples with three agent frameworks in `python/examples/` |
-
-The npm package holds `src/`, `bin/`, `net/`, `spec/`, `docs/`,
-`samples/` and the checking page. The tests, the shared test files, the
-demonstration, the tools and the Python version are in the repository
-only.
-
-## Install
-
 ```
-npm install provared
+npm install provared          # Node.js 24.7 or later, no dependencies
+pip install provared          # Python 3.11 or later, one dependency
+npx provared-check --sample   # the checker's answer for the sample record
 ```
 
-You need Node.js 24.7 or later. There are no dependencies. Node.js marks
-its ML-DSA and SLH-DSA as experimental and may print a warning about
-them; the command-line checker does not repeat it.
+The sample is an invented office agent that goes over its limit at its
+fifth order. The checker's answer ends:
 
-```js
-import { checkBook, openRecorder } from 'provared';               // the whole library
-import { checkBook } from 'provared/check';                       // the checker alone, as a page uses it
-import { createPasskey } from 'provared/passkey-browser';          // a passkey, in a browser
 ```
-
-The checker for the command line is `provared-check`:
-
-```
-npx provared-check record.jsonl --issuer <the thumbprint of the passkey you trust>
+Summary
+  Is the record intact?                 yes
+  Was every signature checked?          yes
+  Did the agent stay within its slip?   NO: first at entry 5
+  Time-stamped in a way you trust?      yes: the first 9 entries existed by 2026-10-05T10:16:00Z
+  Checked against keys you named?       yes: the passkey you trust, and the recorder you expect
 ```
 
-The examples below import from the package by name. In a copy of the
-repository, import from `./src/index.js`, `./src/check.js` and
-`./src/passkey-browser.js` instead.
-
-## Try it
-
-These need a copy of the repository. You need Node.js 24.7 or later.
-Nothing is installed: there are no dependencies.
-
-**Run the tests.**
-
-```
-npm test
-```
+## A first record of your own
 
-**Check the sample record from the command line.**
+Three commands. The permission is signed with a **development stand-in
+for a passkey**: a key made in memory, which no person confirmed. Every
+permission it signs says so in its issuer's name, and the checker prints
+that name. A real permission is signed by a person, in a browser, with a
+real passkey (`provared/passkey-browser`, and the checking page).
 
 ```
-npm run check -- samples/office-supplies.jsonl
-```
-
-It prints each entry, then its answers: is the record intact, was
-everything checked on this device, did the agent stay within its slip, is
-it time-stamped in a way you trust, and was it checked against keys you
-named. Here you named none, so it is not a pass, whatever else it shows;
-the fingerprints that come with the sample are given below.
-In the sample the agent goes outside its slip four times: an order the
-supplier never confirmed, an order above 60 pounds that the person was
-not asked to approve, a total of 230 against a limit of 200, and a
-deletion that the slip forbids. The checker says where.
-
-**Make the checking page as one file.**
-
-```
-node tools/make-single-page.mjs
-```
-
-It writes `provared-check.html`: the checking page, its style, the
-checker and the sample record in one file, copied in unchanged. Open it
-in a browser straight from the disk; it needs no server. The file allows
-itself no request of any kind: its content security policy lets nothing
-be loaded from anywhere. The tool prints the file's SHA-256 fingerprint,
-so that a copy can be compared with it. (Tried on 8 October 2026 in the
-three browser builds this repository is tested with.) The file for
-version 0.2.0 is attached to the release on GitHub. Its SHA-256
-fingerprint is `7e142fa119458ce00c5fdd6e1cafc75cb3bb4672624157a0a0ef4624f92812ae`.
-
-**Run the demonstration in a browser.**
-
-```
-npm run demo
-```
-
-Then open `http://localhost:8787`. You sign a permission with a passkey,
-the agent works and stops once to ask your approval of one order, and the
-page shows where the agent went outside the permission. Everything in it
-is invented: nothing is bought, sent or deleted. The checking
-page on its own is at `http://localhost:8787/check`. It takes a record
-file, the fingerprints you already trust (keys, time-stamp services,
-blocks), and what you were handed with the record: the person's own
-copies of cancellations, and disclosures for covered fields. All of it is
-read in the browser and sent nowhere.
-
-## What a slip can say
-
-- **What the agent may do**: a list of action names. Use names of your
-  own, or names from the shared list in the format description, section
-  16, such as `provared.order.place`, so that another organisation's
-  checker knows what is meant.
-- **Limits**: a total, a limit on each single action, a number of
-  actions, and a total or a number within any period.
-- **Conditions**: that the other side must countersign an action, and
-  that the person must approve an action with their passkey, always or
-  above an amount.
-- **Stated rules**: kinds of action the agent must never do, such as
-  `destroys`, and rules of conduct, such as "never claim to be a human
-  being". A checker compares the first with the stubs. The second is the
-  person's signed instruction: no check can show that the agent kept it.
-- **With whom**: the services the agent may deal with, and their keys.
-
-The other side has a voice of its own. A service can sign a **refusal**
-("this agent asked for something outside its slip, and we refused") and
-its **terms for agents** (which actions it accepts). Both are shown as
-what the service said.
-
-## The seal and the outside time-stamp
-
-Whoever keeps the book seals it from time to time: they sign its top
-fingerprint and its number of entries, with three signatures (Ed25519,
-ML-DSA-87 and SLH-DSA-SHA2-256s). An outside time-stamp service then
-states when that seal existed, in the standard form of RFC 3161.
-
-- After a seal by a recorder you named (`--sealer`, or `sealKeys`),
-  nothing before it can be changed, added or removed without the seal no
-  longer fitting. A seal by keys you did not name shows only that someone
-  sealed the book as it now stands.
-- With a time-stamp from a service you trust, the entries before the seal
-  existed by the time the service states. An entry dated later than that
-  is reported.
-- **You say whom you trust.** This format names no time-stamp service.
-  You give the checker the fingerprint of the certificate of each service
-  you trust; a time-stamp from any other service is shown, and not
-  counted. In the same way you can give the fingerprint of the key set of
-  the recorder you expect.
-
-- **A second clock that rests on no signature.** Beside a time-stamp
-  from a service, a seal can carry a **block time-stamp**: proof that
-  its fingerprint was written into a block of a public blockchain (the
-  open proof format OpenTimestamps, and the Bitcoin blockchain). The
-  chain is used purely as a clock: no coin, no wallet, no account and no
-  payment is involved. It stays good even if every signing method of
-  today is broken. You name the blocks you trust by their fingerprints
-  (`--block`, or `blocks`). A block's time is right only to within about
-  two hours, and the checker says so. The tests use made-up blocks. Two
-  complete proofs that others had published, one made by hand and one
-  made by public calendar services, were checked once with this reader
-  against the real blocks they name (5 October 2026): each led to its
-  blocks, and each was refused with another block or with its file
-  changed by one bit.
-
-```
-npm run check -- samples/office-supplies.jsonl --stamp-service <fingerprint> --sealer <fingerprint>
-```
-
-The fingerprints for the sample are in
-`samples/office-supplies.expected.json`. The sample's time-stamp service
-is made up, as its passkey is.
-
-### Knowing that a block is part of the chain
-
-**Experimental.** `provared-headers` is new in version 0.1.0 and may
-change. It is the only part of Provared that connects to the internet,
-and it does so only when you run it.
-
-A block time-stamp counts only for a block you trust to be part of the
-Bitcoin blockchain. You need not run a Bitcoin node of your own, or trust
-anyone who lists blocks, to know that:
-
-```
-provared-headers --node <host:port> --node <host:port>
-provared-check record.jsonl --headers block-headers.bin --issuer <thumbprint> --sealer <fingerprint>
-```
-
-`provared-headers` fetches the chain of block headers (about 78 MB, a
-few minutes the first time) from the Bitcoin nodes you name, and from no
-one else, and keeps it in a file. It checks every header on your device,
-by the rules every Bitcoin node applies, from the chain's first block:
-each names the block before it, carries the work its target asks for,
-follows the rule for the difficulty, and states a time that the rules
-allow. The chain must also hold, at their places, ten blocks known to be
-part of it, which are written into the library, and after the last of
-them no target may be more than four times easier than that block's. A
-second node, on another network, must hand back the latest six blocks
-itself. A node can refuse to answer, but cannot have a false header
-kept. A chain file someone else hands you is only as good as they are:
-fetch your own. Run it again later and it
-fetches only the newer headers. Name your own node if you have one
-(`127.0.0.1:8333`); a file of nodes, one `host:port` to a line, can be
-given with `--nodes-file`. The nodes you name see your device's address,
-and a node named by its name is looked up by your device's own name
-service.
-
-`provared-check --headers` checks that file again, in full, on your
-device, and makes no request. A block time-stamp then counts if its block
-is in the chain with at least six blocks after it. The checker says, for
-each block time-stamp, what the chain shows. In the library:
-`checkHeaderChain` and `blocksInChain`.
-
-## Cancelling a slip
-
-The person who signed a slip can end it early with the same passkey, and
-have the cancellation time-stamped at once. Every stub after it is then
-reported as outside the slip. With a time-stamp on the cancellation, a
-stub counts as made before it only if an outside time-stamp shows that
-it existed by then: an agent cannot escape a cancellation by writing an
-earlier time into a stub. If the person cancelled more than once, every
-cancellation counts, in whichever order they stand in the book.
-
-The person should keep their own copy of a cancellation, with its
-time-stamp. Whoever keeps the book could leave the cancellation out, or
-put a later time-stamp in its place. Handed to the checker beside the
-book (`--cancellation <file>`, or `cancellations`), the person's copy
-counts all the same: the checker says whether the book holds it, and
-reports every stub that no outside time-stamp shows to have existed
-before it.
-
-A cancellation shows when the person signed it, not that the agent's
-side was told. So the agent's side can **acknowledge** it: a short
-record, signed with the agent's own keys, that says "this cancellation
-was handed to us at this time". The stub writer signs one whenever the
-person's cancellation of its slip is handed to its `add`, once for each
-cancellation, writes it into the book after the cancellation, and hands
-it back for the person to keep. Handed to the checker with the person's
-copy (as `acknowledgements` in the same file), it shows which stubs the
-agent made after it was told, which passes it handed on after it was
-told, and whether a cancellation that the book leaves out had been
-handed over. Both dates in that comparison are the agent's own word. An
-acknowledgement that does not check is reported, and the cancellation
-itself is still used.
-
-## Who stands behind a name
-
-A name in a record is a label. An organisation can stand behind one with
-a **vouching record**: "this key belongs to this name". It can vouch for
-a person's passkey, an agent's keys, a service's keys and a recorder's
-keys, and can later **withdraw** the statement. You tell the checker
-which organisations you trust (`--voucher`, or `vouchers`), and it then
-shows a name as "vouched for by" that organisation instead of "a label,
-not checked". The vouching record must be in force for the whole of the
-slip's time. Provared does not decide who anyone is: it records who
-vouched.
-
-A slip can also state the fingerprints of the agent's program and
-settings, as the person approved them. That is a statement, not proof of
-what ran.
-
-## Covered fields
-
-A slip can be written with its names and its purpose covered: the person's
-name, the agent's name, the services' names and the purpose. What is
-signed then holds a fingerprint in place of each. To let a reader see a
-field, hand over its **disclosure**; to keep it hidden, do not. The
-signature, the chain and the tree check either way, and a disclosure
-cannot be made for a value that was not signed. A disclosure that does
-not fit is refused and said to be, and the slip is checked as it would
-be without it: what a slip is does not depend on what is handed over
-with it. Nothing that a checker
-compares can be covered: not an action, a limit, a condition, a service
-or a key. So every reader checks the same slip.
-
-```js
-const prepared = await prepareSlip(fields, { cover: ['issuer.name', 'purpose'] });
-prepared.disclosures; // keep these beside the slip
-
-await checkBook(book, { disclosures: { [fingerprintOfTheSlip]: theDisclosuresYouWereHanded } });
-await makeShow(book, [0, 3], { disclosures: { 0: theOnesThisReaderMaySee } });
-```
-
-The method is the standard "Selective Disclosure for JSON Web Tokens"
-(RFC 9901), which digital identity wallets also use. The standard's own
-worked example is one of the tests. A slip uses less than the standard
-allows: no covered item of a list, no decoy fingerprints, and
-disclosures written in one canonical form.
-
-## Passing a slip on
-
-A slip can say that its agent may hand part of its permission to a helper
-agent, and how many times in a row (`passes`: from 1 to 10). The agent then
-signs a **pass** that names the helper's keys, what the helper may do,
-its limits and its times. A helper's stubs name the pass, are signed with
-the helper's keys, and are compared with the pass, with every pass above
-it, and with the slip the person signed. The totals of the slip, and of
-each pass, take in everything done under them, so passing on cannot
-widen a permission. A pass the slip does
-not allow is reported, with every stub under it.
-
-## The check before acting
-
-`checkBefore` answers, before an action: would this be outside the slip?
-It uses the same comparison as the checker, so it refuses everything the
-checker would report afterwards. In one case it refuses more: an action
-that would add to a period which a stub dated after it already
-overfills; the checker reports that against the later stub. The software
-around an agent can call it and stop the action.
-
-```js
-import { checkBefore } from 'provared';
-
-const answer = await checkBefore(
-  textOfTheBookSoFar,
-  {
-    slip: fingerprintOfTheSlip,
-    action: 'provared.order.place',
-    amount: { unit: 'GBP', value: 80 },
-    with: 'supplier',
-    approval: theSignedApprovalIfTheSlipAsksForOne,
-  },
-  { issuerKeys: ['the thumbprint of the passkey you trust'] },
-);
-
-answer.allowed;   // true only if the record so far is sound, fully checked, and the action is inside the slip
-answer.breaches;  // why not, in the checker's own codes
-answer.problems;  // why the question could not be answered with a yes
-answer.needs;     // what the slip asks to go with it: 'approval', 'countersignature'
-```
-
-It must be told whose passkey it trusts: a slip signed by any other key
-allows nothing. Where the slip asks for the person's approval, the action
-is allowed only if the signed approval is handed over. Where the slip
-asks for a countersignature, `needs` says so: the action is inside the
-slip only if the other side then countersigns it.
-
-It is a help, not evidence: nothing in a record shows that it was called.
-
-## Beside an agent
-
-`openRecorder` puts the two things an agent's software must do into one
-call: ask first, and write the receipt after.
-
-```js
-import { openRecorder } from 'provared';
-
-const recorder = await openRecorder({ book, slip, privateKeys, issuerKeys });
-
-const outcome = await recorder.act(
-  { action: 'provared.order.place', amount: { unit: 'GBP', value: 45 }, with: 'supplier' },
-  async () => placeTheOrder(),            // taken only if the answer is yes
-  { countersign: askTheSupplierToCountersign },
-);
-
-outcome.done;      // false: the action was outside the slip, was not taken, and nothing was written
-recorder.book();   // the book, with the new stub in the agent's chain
-await recorder.check();   // what the record shows as it stands, as checkBook would answer
+npm install provared
+node first-record.mjs
+npx provared-check book.jsonl --issuer <the thumbprint it prints>
 ```
 
-If taking the action fails with an error, no stub is written; the caller
-must deal with whatever part of the action did happen. `record` writes a
-stub without asking, for an action that was taken some other way: the
-record is of what happened, inside the slip or not.
-
-The writer's calls wait for one another, so two actions asked for at the
-same moment are taken one after the other, each against the book as the
-one before left it. A countersignature that the other side hands back is
-checked before it goes into the book; one that does not check is left
-out, the stub stands one-sided, and `stub.countersignature.problem` says
-why. `add` puts an entry that someone else made (a seal, a cancellation,
-a refusal) into the book only if the book still passes its check with
-it, and it is not dated ahead of the clock. The other side is given 30
-seconds to countersign (`countersignWithin`); after that the stub is
-written one-sided. Where the slip asks for a countersignature, `act`
-takes the action only if it is given a way to ask for one. Before an
-action is taken, its stub is written and checked with the whole book, so
-that the receipt is known to fit. `act` takes an action now: a date
-handed to it must be within 300 seconds of the writer's clock (`now`).
-Nothing is written that is dated more than 300 seconds ahead of that
-clock. What the writer is handed (the request, an approval, what the
-other side hands back) is copied when it is handed over, and the copy is
-what is checked and written. `record` hands a stub to the other side
-only once it has passed the check of the whole book. The function
-that takes the action must not call the writer. Use one writer for one
-chain: two writers on two copies of a book know nothing of each other.
-
-The writer reads its book once, when it is opened, and then carries it
-on: each new line is read by itself, and no signature is checked twice.
-So the time an action takes grows only slowly with the length of the
-book. Measured on one computer on 4 October 2026, with countersigned
-stubs: 9, 14 and 23 thousandths of a second for one action after 400,
-1,600 and 6,400 stubs. (Before the book was carried on: 2.0 seconds
-after 400 stubs and 7.7 after 1,600.) Opening the writer still reads
-the whole book: about one second for every 450 stubs. Every line
-is tried on a reader split off the book's own before it joins the book,
-so an entry that does not fit, or an error part of the way through a
-call, leaves the writer's view of its book exact. `recorder.check()`
-gives the checker's answer for the book as it stands, without reading
-it again. `before` waits its turn with the other calls. What the writer
-is told to trust (`options`) is read once, when it is opened, and
-fixed.
-
-A cancellation that the person signed is never lost in `add`. If it
-cannot be added as it was handed over (a faulty time-stamp beside it, a
-member that cannot be written as a line, such as a list with a gap in
-it), the writer adds the cancellation with its time-stamps, or with
-those of them that pass their check, or by itself. If it cannot be added even so (it is dated ahead
-of the clock), the writer keeps it, allows nothing more under the slip,
-and writes it into the book, at its next call, once the clock has
-reached its date. In both cases `add` fails, and the error says what was
-done. (Where the clock fails, the error is the clock's own; the
-cancellation is held all the same, as `cancellations()` shows.) A
-cancellation that the writer keeps lives only in that writer:
-`recorder.cancellations()` hands back what it holds, each with the
-acknowledgement the writer signed for it, and so does an acknowledgement
-that still waits to follow its cancellation into the book. Keep that
-with the book, and hand it in again (`options.cancellations`, an empty
-list included) when you open a writer again; a writer opened from the
-book alone knows nothing of it. Read `recorder.book()` and
-`recorder.cancellations()` together, with nothing awaited in between,
-so that the two you keep belong to the same moment. A cancellation given in that way is written into the book once
-its date has come, and stops the writer from the start. A copy that
-the writer holds takes the time-stamps handed over with it later: each
-is judged by itself, those the writer counts come first, and a copy
-holds four at most. The writer is stopped before it reads its clock, so
-a clock that fails then does not lose the cancellation, nor the sound
-time-stamps, nor the acknowledgements handed over with it. A clock that
-gives anything but a time counts as a clock that failed. An
-acknowledgement that is handed over with a cancellation is taken as the
-agent's own only if it checks by itself, and only the first such one is
-taken: the writer never puts a second one of the agent's own with a
-copy (a copy given at opening that already holds two is handed back as
-it was given). A copy holds four
-acknowledgements at most; the writer's own is always among them, and
-where the copy already holds four, the last of the others gives way to
-it. A writer that is stopped
-takes no action, but `record` still writes the stub of an action that
-was taken all the same: the record is of what happened, and a checker
-reports such a stub.
-
-### The agent's tools
-
-An agent acts by calling tools: functions that its software offers it.
-`recordTools` puts each tool behind the stub writer, so that no call is
-forgotten. The agent's software calls the tools as before.
+`first-record.mjs` ([examples/first-record.mjs](examples/first-record.mjs)):
 
 ```js
-import { openRecorder, recordTools } from 'provared';
-
-const recorder = await openRecorder({ book, slip, privateKeys, issuerKeys });
-const tools = recordTools(recorder, {
-  placeOrder: {
-    action: 'provared.order.place',          // the name the slip uses for it
-    with: 'supplier',
-    amount: (order) => ({ unit: 'GBP', value: order.total }),
-    run: (order) => sendTheOrder(order),     // run only if the slip allows it
-    countersign: (stub) => askTheSupplierToCountersign(stub),
-  },
-  readStock: { action: 'provared.data.read', run: (query) => lookUpStock(query) },
-});
-
-await tools.placeOrder({ item: 'paper', boxes: 5, total: 45 });
-```
-
-A call that the slip does not allow throws `NotTaken`, with the answer
-of the check before acting, and the tool is not run. Where the slip asks
-for the person's own approval, a tool's `approve` function is asked for
-it once. By default the stub of a call names one document,
-`arguments`: the fingerprint of the call's arguments, written in one
-form (RFC 8785). So the record fixes exactly what was asked for without
-holding it; `argumentsFingerprint` works the same fingerprint out again.
-The arguments must be JSON: a list with a gap in it, or with a named
-member, or a member that is `undefined`, is refused, and the tool is
-not run. A fingerprint of arguments
-that are few and easy to guess can be guessed. What a tool is, and what
-it is called with, is copied when it is handed over; each function a
-tool is described by gets a copy of the arguments of its own, and is
-called by itself, without `this`: it is not handed the description and
-cannot change it. What `amount`, `with` and `details` give is
-copied too, so a function that keeps what it gave cannot change it
-afterwards. `amount` and `with` must give their value at once,
-not a promise. The numbers `0` and `-0` share a fingerprint, as RFC
-8785 writes both as `0`. If `onStub` fails, its error is passed on,
-though the tool has run and its stub is in the book. `recordTools`
-names no agent software, and works with any function.
-
-## How signing works
+import { writeFileSync } from 'node:fs';
+import { developmentRecorder } from 'provared/dev';
 
-- **The person** signs a slip with a passkey. A passkey signs a short
-  value handed to it; that value is the SHA-256 fingerprint of the slip's
-  exact signed bytes, so the signature covers the whole slip.
-- **The agent and the service** each sign with two keys at once: Ed25519,
-  which is today's kind, and ML-DSA-87, which is quantum-safe. A record
-  counts only if both signatures check. A forger must break both.
-- **The passkey signature is of today's kind only**, because no device
-  offers a quantum-safe passkey yet.
-- **Whoever keeps the book** signs each seal with three keys: the same
-  two, and SLH-DSA-SHA2-256s, which rests only on fingerprint functions.
-- **Browsers are only now adding ML-DSA, and have no SLH-DSA.** Where a
-  browser lacks a method, the checking page says that those signatures
-  were not checked, and does not show a pass. Node.js checks all of them.
+const SEND = 'provared.message.send';
 
-## Using the library
-
-```js
-import { checkBook } from 'provared/check';
-
-const result = await checkBook(textOfTheBook, {
-  issuerKeys: ['the thumbprint of an issuer key you already trust'],
+// A permission: the agent may send messages, at most two.
+const { recorder, issuerKeys } = await developmentRecorder({
+  actions: [SEND],
+  limits: [{ action: SEND, count: 2 }],
+  purpose: 'Send a few messages, to make a first record.',
 });
 
-result.summary.intact;        // no problem found, and every signature checked
-result.summary.problemFound;  // was a problem found in the record?
-result.summary.fullyChecked;  // was every signature checked on this device?
-result.summary.withinSlips;   // every stub compared with its slip, none outside it
-result.summary.firstBreach;   // the first entry that shows the agent outside its slip
-```
-
-Type declarations come with the library (`src/types.d.ts`), so an editor
-can check how it is called.
-
-**A book that grows.** `checkBook` reads a whole book each time. To
-follow a book as lines are added to it, open a checker once and carry it
-on. It reads each new line against what it worked out from the lines
-before it, and checks no signature twice. Its answer is the answer
-`checkBook` gives for the same text; a test compares the two at every
-length of a book that holds every kind of entry.
-
-```js
-import { openChecker } from 'provared/check';
+// Each action is asked for first, taken only if the permission allows it,
+// and receipted after. The third message is outside it, so it is not sent.
+for (let i = 1; i <= 3; i++) {
+  const outcome = await recorder.act({ action: SEND }, async () => console.log(`message ${i} sent`));
+  if (!outcome.done) console.log(`message ${i} not sent: ${outcome.answer.breaches[0].message}`);
+}
 
-const checker = await openChecker(textOfTheBookSoFar, { issuerKeys });
-await checker.add(newLines);            // whole lines, each ending with a line feed
-const result = await checker.result();  // the same shape as checkBook returns
+writeFileSync('book.jsonl', recorder.book());
+console.log(`npx provared-check book.jsonl --issuer ${issuerKeys[0]}`);
 ```
 
-What the checker is told to trust is fixed when it is opened. Each answer
-is a copy of its own.
-
-The checker never throws for a bad record. A failed check is a normal
-answer with a named reason. It keeps two things apart:
+The same in Python is
+[python/examples/first_record.py](python/examples/first_record.py), with
+`from provared.dev import development_recorder`. For a LangChain agent,
+`pip install provared-langchain` puts every tool call behind the same
+check with no change to the tools
+([python/integrations/provared-langchain](python/integrations/provared-langchain)).
 
-- **problems**: reasons the record cannot be relied on (a changed entry, a
-  signature that does not fit, a broken chain);
-- **breaches**: what a sound record shows about the agent (an action the
-  slip does not allow, a limit passed).
-
-### What the checker returns
+## The four parts
 
-| Member | Meaning |
+| Part | What it is |
 |---|---|
-| `size`, `root` | How many entries the book holds, and its top fingerprint |
-| `problems` | Problems with the book as a whole |
-| `entries` | One for each line: `index`, `kind` (`slip`, `stub`, `refusal`, `terms`, `seal`, `cancellation`, `acknowledgement`, `vouching`, `withdrawal`, `pass` or `unreadable`), `fingerprint`, `verified` (`all`, `some` or `none` of its signatures confirmed here), `problems`, `breaches`, `notes`, the signature states, and `content`. Where a time-stamp you trust on a later seal covers the entry: `existedBy`, the time by which it is shown to have existed. On a seal or a cancellation that passed its check: `stampedAt`, the time its own time-stamps give it |
-| `held` | One for each cancellation handed over beside the book: whether it passed its check and was used, whether the book holds it (`inBook`), the time its time-stamp gives, and the acknowledgements handed over with it (`acknowledgements`: who acknowledged, and when by their own word) |
-| `summary.problemFound` | A problem was found somewhere in the record |
-| `summary.fullyChecked` | Every signature was checked on this device |
-| `summary.intact` | No problem was found **and** every signature was checked. The only answer that is a pass |
-| `summary.methodsMissing` | The signing methods this device lacks, if any, for example `ML-DSA-87` |
-| `summary.withinSlips` | Every stub was compared with its slip, and none is outside it |
-| `summary.firstBreach` | The first entry that shows the agent outside its slip, if any |
-| `summary.counts` | Slips, stubs, countersigned stubs (the countersignature confirmed on this device), one-sided stubs (no countersignature; a stub that was not checked, because its slip failed, is neither), stubs the person approved, refusals, sets of terms, and the other kinds of entry |
-| `summary.sealed` | How far the last time-stamp you trust reaches: how many entries, the time they existed by, and whether a service or a block (`by`) gave it. Otherwise nothing |
-| `summary.limits` | What no check can show, in plain sentences |
-
-A signature state is `valid`, `invalid`, `unavailable` (this device
-lacks the method; never a pass), or `unchecked` (not checked, because
-what it rests on failed its check). Each problem and each breach has a `code`
-in plain words and a `message`. The codes are listed in
-`docs/threat-model.md`, section 8.
-
-The `content` of an entry that has problems, or whose `verified` is
-`none`, is unverified. It is there for whoever must find out what went
-wrong. Never show it as fact: the checking page and the command-line
-checker do not.
-
-Options: `issuerKeys` (the thumbprints of issuer keys you trust),
-`sealKeys` (the fingerprints of the key sets of the recorders you
-expect), `stampServices` (the fingerprints of the certificates of the
-time-stamp services you trust), `blocks` (the fingerprints of the
-blocks of a public blockchain you trust), `vouchers` (the fingerprints of the key
-sets of the organisations whose vouching you trust), `disclosures` (the
-disclosures of covered fields that you were handed), `cancellations`
-(the person's own copies of cancellations), `expectedRoot` and
-`expectedSize` (a top fingerprint and a number of entries you already
-hold a copy of). Give
-them whenever you have them.
-
-The checker reads a whole book into memory. A book of several hundred
-megabytes may be too large for a browser or for Node.js to hold as one
-text.
-
-The command-line checker ends with code 0 (intact, nothing outside the
-slip, and checked against keys you named: the passkey you trust and,
-where the record has a seal, the recorder you expect), 1 (no problem
-found, but the agent is outside its slip, not every signature could be
-checked, or you did not name whom you trust) or 2 (a problem was found,
-or what you gave on the command line could not be used). A value that
-is not a fingerprint is refused, never set aside. The checking page
-gives its green answer on the same terms.
-
-Writing records: `prepareSlip` and `assembleSlip`, `prepareApproval` and
-`assembleApproval` (the person), `writeStub` (the agent), `countersign`,
-`prepareCancellation` and `assembleCancellation` (the person),
-`writeRefusal` and `writeTerms` (the service), `writeVouching` and
-`writeWithdrawal` (an organisation), `writePass` (an agent, to a helper
-agent), `writeSeal` (whoever keeps
-the book; it needs Node.js), `writeBook` and `makeShow`, all from
-`provared`. The library asks no time-stamp service itself: you send
-the seal's fingerprint to the service you choose and put its answer
-beside the seal. In a browser, `createPasskey`, `signSlipWithPasskey`,
-`approveWithPasskey` and `cancelWithPasskey` from
-`provared/passkey-browser`. For a slip with covered fields in a browser:
-`prepareSlip` with `cover`, then `signChallengeWithPasskey` with what it
-prepared, then `assembleSlip`; keep the disclosures it prepared.
+| **The permission (a Slip)** | A person signs it with a passkey: which agent, which actions, what limits and conditions, with whom, from when until when, and why |
+| **The receipt (a Stub)** | The agent signs one for each action, pointing back to its slip; the other side countersigns it where it can, and the person approves it where the slip asks |
+| **The sealed book (a Seal)** | The receipts chained, gathered under one fingerprint, signed by whoever keeps the book and time-stamped by an outside service |
+| **One page with proof (a Show)** | One entry handed to a checker with proof that it is in the book, and when the book was sealed, with the names it does not need kept covered |
+
+The checker answers two questions and keeps them apart: **is the record
+intact**, and **did the agent stay within its slip**. Going over a limit
+is not a fault in the record. It is what a sound record shows.
+
+## What the author found nowhere else
+
+Signed, chained and time-stamped receipts for an agent's actions exist
+in other open projects too, some with quantum-safe signatures. As far as
+the author knows, in October 2026, three things are only here: **limits
+a machine can check** in a permission the person signs, with the
+checker's answer "did the agent stay within it"; **passing a permission
+on** to a helper agent so that it can narrow and never widen; and
+**cancelling** with the agent's signed acknowledgement, so that a record
+shows when the agent's side was told. If you know of another project
+that does any of these, open an issue: the list is kept honest.
 
 ## What a record does not prove
 
-- It proves what was recorded, not what was left out. An agent that acts
-  and writes no stub leaves no trace.
-- A one-sided stub (one with no countersignature) proves what the agent's
-  side said, not what the other side did.
-- A refusal proves what the service's side said, not what the agent did.
-- A rule of conduct in a slip is the person's signed instruction. No
-  check can show that the agent kept it.
-- An approval proves that the passkey approved that one action, not that
-  the person read what they approved.
-- It does not show that an action was wise, lawful or wanted.
-- A badly written slip is faithfully recorded as a badly written slip.
-- It does not prove who was holding the device when the passkey signed.
-- A name in a record is a label. Only keys are checked. A vouching
-  record shows which organisation stood behind a name, not how well it
-  checked.
-
-And about time:
-
-- only an outside time-stamp you trust, from a service or a block you
-  named, proves when entries existed. The times inside records are the signer's own word,
-  so a limit within a period rests on the agent's word;
-- after the last seal, the latest stubs under a slip or a pass, or a
-  slip or a pass with all its stubs, can be removed unnoticed, which can hide a stub that shows
-  the agent outside its slip;
-- the last seal, with everything after it, can itself be removed. Only a
-  copy of it, or of its top fingerprint and number of entries, held by
-  someone else shows that;
-- time-stamp services sign with methods of today's kind, which are not
-  quantum-safe.
+It shows what was recorded, not what was left out: an agent that acts
+and writes no stub leaves no trace. A one-sided stub shows what the
+agent's side said. It does not show that an action was wise, lawful or
+wanted, nor who was holding the device when the passkey signed. A name
+in a record is a label; only keys are checked. The full list, with what
+each part protects against, is in
+[docs/threat-model.md](docs/threat-model.md).
+
+## Where everything else is
+
+- **[The guide](docs/guide.md)**: the whole library, in one document.
+  Installing and importing; the command-line checker; what a slip can
+  say; seals, time-stamps and the chain of block headers; cancelling;
+  who stands behind a name; covered fields; passing a slip on; the check
+  before acting; the stub writer beside an agent and the connector for
+  its tools; what the checker returns; what it never does; what is not
+  built yet.
+- **[The format, described exactly](spec/provared-format.md)**, and
+  the shared test files in [test-vectors/](test-vectors/) that any
+  implementation can be held to.
+- **[The Python version](python/README.md)**, which gives the same
+  answers, with examples for three agent frameworks and packages for
+  two of them.
+- **[The pages at prova.red](https://prova.red/)**: the checker's answer
+  for the sample record, a worked example for developers, and the same
+  in plain words for a reader who does not write code.
+- **[The checking page](https://prova.red/check/)**, which checks a
+  record in a browser and loads nothing from anywhere; also built as
+  one file, attached to each release.
+- **The core of the format as an individual Internet-Draft** at the
+  IETF:
+  [draft-izmaylov-agent-permission-receipts](https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-izmaylov-agent-permission-receipts/).
+  An Internet-Draft is a working document, not a standard.
+- **[CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md)**, [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md) and
+  [CONTRIBUTING.md](CONTRIBUTING.md).
 
-## What it never does
-
-It never holds money, never starts a payment and issues no token. It
-reports nothing back from the machine it runs on. The checker makes no
-network request. Only `provared-headers`, which you run yourself,
-connects to anything: to the Bitcoin nodes you name, for block headers.
-
-## Not built yet
+## Status
 
-A public place where seals are kept; covering fields other than a slip's
-names and purpose; connectors for particular agent software (the
-general one, `recordTools`, is built); a compact binary form; the
-recorder service. The checking page cannot yet take a chain of block
-headers: use the command-line checker.
+**Version 0.3.0, a draft.** Published as it is, by one author in their
+own time, built with AI tools since 3 October 2026; fixes as time
+allows. The code has been through 25 rounds of review by AI reviewers,
+each a fresh session given only the code and the documents; every fault
+was fixed and kept as a test. No person other than the author has
+reviewed it yet. That is an invitation. The format may still change.
+Every published version stays on npm and the Python Package Index, so a
+record made with one version can always be checked by that version.
+
+Questions, faults and suggestions: hello@prova.red, or
+[issues on GitHub](https://github.com/provared/provared/issues).
 
 ## Licences