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Provenance

Who asserted what, under which authority, and when

The recorded origin and history of an identity, a name, or an assertion: who did what, under which authority, and when.

RSM ID Learning Center2 min read

Provenance is the recorded evidence behind an identity and everything said about it: the issuance event that created an RID, the transfers that moved its authority, the names it held in each period, the lifecycle changes it went through, and — for relationships — the space, predicate, and authority that asserted them. RSM Core treats it as a module of its own, responsible for issuance, transfer, lineage, and lifecycle evidence.

Provenance is what lets a reader tell an authoritative record from a copy. A server must not describe a cached projection as authoritative without a verified provenance chain, and an aggregator such as Atlas keeps the source of everything it combines.

Example

The Wellzai paper 451.7K4M9Q2X8D5P0R6T declares that it extends the RSM concept Formation, 451.5VJC3VFV46EVR73V. The provenance of that statement says it originated in the Wellzai space, under Wellzai's authority, with the predicate extends. Anyone traversing it can see that Wellzai made the claim — and that the definition of Formation still belongs to RSM.

A common misconception

“Recorded provenance makes a claim true or authoritative.” Provenance records who asserted something and under which authority; it does not by itself turn a remote assertion into fact. A remote claim of equivalence or authority cannot override a registered record without governed reconciliation, however well documented it is.

Issuance provenance is kept in the Identity Record. Atlas preserves provenance while it aggregates, and federation depends on it. The third Journal follows one resource and its provenance across spaces.

In the specification

The provenance module: Document 08 §12.1. Issuance provenance in the record: §5.3.1. Relationships: §7.4. Transfers: §9.4. Cached projections: §18.6.