Proof of Evolution

Nova, IVC, and lifecycle state

Proof of Evolution is the async Attesto 2.0 lane for proving lifecycle state transitions over committed checkpoint metadata. It does not sit in the hot ingest path and does not block receipts.

Overview

Proofstream creates the evidence history first. The Proof of Evolution lane then takes typed checkpoint commitments, policy semantics, incident/gap state, witness quorum evidence, and previous lifecycle state roots and produces a new committed state root for the next epoch.

Nova and IVC

Nova is used as the research direction for incrementally verifiable computation through folding schemes. In Attesto, the practical goal is to prove lifecycle state evolution over evidence commitments, not to put large AI workloads directly inside the ingest path.

State roots and public inputs

{
  "previous_state_root": "sha256-hex",
  "semantic_schema_root": "typed-commitment-hex",
  "checkpoint_root": "typed-commitment-hex",
  "policy_digest": "typed-commitment-hex",
  "incident_state_hash": "typed-commitment-hex",
  "witness_registry_root": "typed-commitment-hex",
  "required_threshold": 2,
  "required_witness_classes_root": "typed-commitment-hex",
  "next_state_root": "sha256-hex"
}

Evolution chain

Each IVC epoch references the previous state root and the checkpoint range it summarizes. A verifier can inspect the evolution chain as a sequence of state transitions over evidence commitments.

Claim boundaries

Current production language is “designed for lifecycle proofing; cryptographic construction pending external review.” Stronger statements about externally reviewed cryptographic security remain unavailable until an external applied-cryptography review is completed and linked from the public trust material.