@veritasacta/verify
Check signed records yourself, without contacting the issuing service.
An offline CLI and a shared browser receipt engine. Supply a receipt and a public key obtained through a separate trusted channel, then apply your own trust policy. No account, proxy, signing daemon or onboarding step is required to verify a receipt.
Try the browser sample · Receipt specification · Conformance evidence
Verify an existing receipt
npm install -g @veritasacta/[email protected]
verify receipt.json --key YOUR_INDEPENDENTLY_OBTAINED_PUBLIC_KEY
The key is 64 hexadecimal characters. Do not treat a key supplied with an unknown receipt as an independent trust pin. This verification path runs offline once the package is installed; installation and explicitly requested URL/JWKS lookups use the network.
An Acta receipt or audit bundle is never checked with a key taken from the file
being checked. A receipt whose signed bytes carry a key (public_key,
verification_key, verification_jwk) other than the one you supply fails with
key_mismatch, and an envelope whose payload names an issuer_id other than its
signature's kid fails with issuer_kid_mismatch. An audit bundle's own
verification.signing_keys are used only if you pass --trust-bundle-keys, and a
valid result then shows only that the receipts match keys in the same file. Gate
records, macro track records, governed receipts, proof packs, context packs,
repository evidence, standard files and run manifests carry their own key; checked
without --key, the result is undecidable (exit 2). --allow-carried-key accepts
it (exit 0) and says the signature proves nothing about who signed; --strict
refuses it even then. Key windows apply to the issued_at the
signature covers, and disclosures are checked against the commitments the signature
covers; a disclosure that cannot be applied is not checked (exit 2).
To try the public example, download this receipt and use its demonstration-only key:
verify current-receipt.json --key ebb8cf3efc78717c50e7c438c0ad5498f8fa4e09607fea1e030ac129b5965225
A valid signature is not proof of claim truth, complete action coverage, signer authority or recipient acceptance. A signed timestamp is an issuer assertion, not an independent timestamp.
Read the outcome correctly
Exit 1 does not prove tampering. Supplying the wrong expected key can produce
the same result. Some legacy JSON error categories use the name tampered for
compatibility; it denotes failed verification, not a forensic conclusion.
See error codes and the profile-specific output.
Browser and CLI
Both use src/detect.js, src/engines/ed25519-receipt.js and the same canonicalizer.
The browser bundle is published in browser/, with a SHA-256 build manifest.
The browser accepts individual Ed25519 envelopes, v2 structured receipts, v1 flat
receipts and historical website receipt_version: "1.0" receipts. That historical
profile excluded public_key from signing and is explicitly labelled; it is not
silently promoted to draft-03 conformance. All browser profiles require an external
key. Unsupported formats are not checked, not reported as bad signatures.
Both entry points reject duplicate JSON members before parsing. The browser limits input to 1 MiB and depth 64; the CLI file parser allows 50 MiB and depth 128. Bundles and specialist profiles, including selective disclosure, VOPRF, Knowledge Units, Gate evidence and governed-run manifests, require the CLI. Profile success only establishes the checks named in that output, not universal completeness.
Choose a guide
Release integrity, not publisher authentication
verify --self-check recomputes monitored source hashes against a bundled integrity
commitment (the Sigil). It detects drift from that commitment. Someone replacing
both the code and commitment can create a new internally consistent package.
It does not independently authenticate the publisher or establish a canonical
release. Pin a reference obtained independently and inspect release provenance.
--attest is a local, self-signed integrity statement; separately pin its key before
relying on it.
Release and standards status
Verifier: 0.11.1. Status reviewed 2026-10-25.
- draft-farley-acta-signed-receipts-03: active individual Internet-Draft.
- draft-farley-acta-knowledge-units-00: expired individual Internet-Draft (expired 2026-10-08).
Internet-Drafts are proposals, not adopted IETF standards or endorsements.
release-manifest.json is the source for version/status
blocks in this README, the website, the organisation profile and draft index.
node scripts/sync-public-metadata.mjs --check checks sibling repository copies.
No draft is revised or resubmitted by this synchronization.
Development and maintainership
Maintained by Tom Farley / ScopeBlind. Independent verification does not imply independent organizational governance. Contributions should include reproducible fixtures and negative cases. The contribution guide covers a clean checkout, package checks and useful first contributions. See the public project evidence for reproducible interoperability results and their limits.
npm ci
npm test
npm run check:browser
npm run check:sigil
npm run test:conformance
Apache-2.0. See LICENSE and PATENTS.md for the actual terms. The Acta public record is a separate reference application. ScopeBlind's commercial applications are not prerequisites for verification.
