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Provenance & proofs

Provenance is the signed evidence behind every citation — proof of exactly which source, and which version of it, a passage or AI answer came from.

When Altretta shows you a cited passage or a grounded answer from your connected AI, it doesn't just say "this came from your notes." It attaches a provenance anchor: a verifiable link back to the signed action in the DAG that the content originated from. You can inspect that anchor, and you can verify it — cryptographically, not on trust.

This is what turns "the AI says so" into "the AI shows its work, and the work checks out." The 証 seal marks content whose provenance can be verified against the signed record.

What a provenance anchor gives you

  • The exact source. Which note or document the passage came from — down to the version, because it points at a signed action, not just a filename.
  • A tamper check. Because the anchor references hash-linked, signed history, you can confirm the cited content hasn't been altered since.
  • A point in time. Proof of what your knowledge was when the citation was made — the foundation for "prove what your AI saw."

The Proof Inspector

Every proof can be opened in the Proof Inspector, where you can look at the underlying evidence and confirm it verifies.

1

Open a proof

From a cited passage or a grounded answer, open its proof to see the provenance anchor behind it.

2

Inspect the evidence

The Proof Inspector shows the source and the signed action it's anchored to.

3

Verify

Check the proof against the signed history. A valid proof confirms the content is authentic and unmodified; an invalid one tells you something doesn't match.

Verifying over MCP

The same proofs are available to your connected AI and tools through Altretta's MCP surface, so verification can be automated as well as manual:

  • aingle_get_proof — retrieve the proof for a piece of content.
  • aingle_verify_proof — verify a proof against the signed history.

Because grounded answers carry provenance anchors, you can ask your assistant to cite and prove its sources in the same breath — and independently confirm the proof holds.

How this compares

  • Obsidian has no provenance layer. A quoted passage is just text; there's nothing to verify it against.
  • Logseq with Git can tell you a line existed in some commit, but the commit itself is mutable and unsigned — it's a hint, not a proof.
  • Altretta anchors citations to a signed, append-only history, so provenance is verifiable evidence, not a best guess.

Provenance follows your knowledge even when it's imported. Ingesting a repository records that ingest's git provenance into the signed DAG, so cited code carries the same verifiable trail as your handwritten notes.

Next

Verifiable knowledge

Back to the verifiable section overview.

What your AI sees

The trust panel where a citation's provenance anchor surfaces per answer.

Grounded, cited answers

Where provenance anchors are attached: behind every AI citation.

Verify a published site

Provenance taken public — verify a published page against its signed source.

MCP tools reference

aingle_get_proof and aingle_verify_proof, explained.

Glossary

Provenance anchor, proof, 証 seal — defined.

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Signed history (the DAG)
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Time-travel: history, diff & restore