/witness

name: witness
description: Sign, verify and track fix-marker regressions over time with an Ed25519 witness manifest. Use when registering fixes or checking a release for regressed fixes. The default seed proves integrity only; set RUFLO_WITNESS_SEED/RUFLO_WITNESS_PUBLIC_KEY for authorship.
argument-hint: "init|regen|verify|history [...]"
allowed-tools: Bash(node *), Read, Write, Edit

Witness — tamper-evident fix-regression tracking

The witness toolkit lets you ship every release with a *signed* manifest that lists every documented fix in your codebase along with a sha256 + marker substring. By default the signing seed is derived from the public git commit, so anyone can reproduce the signature: this is an integrity checksum, not proof of authorship. For authenticity, sign with a 32-byte `RUFLO_WITNESS_SEED` and verify with a pinned `RUFLO_WITNESS_PUBLIC_KEY`.

A temporal history (JSONL) tracks how the fix population evolves across releases — so when a regression appears, you can pinpoint *the commit that introduced it*, not just "it's broken now."

This skill works two ways: 1. **Inside ruflo** — used by ruflo's own CI to gate publishes (see `.github/workflows/v3-ci.yml` job `witness-verify`). 2. **In your own project** — copy `plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/` into your repo, run `init.mjs`, register your fixes in `witness-fixes.json`, and call `regen.mjs` from your release pipeline.

Quick start (any project)

# One-time bootstrap — creates verification.md.json,
# verification-history.jsonl, and witness-fixes.json template
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/init.mjs --root .

# Edit witness-fixes.json: add { id, desc, file, marker } per fix.
# A "marker" is a distinctive substring that MUST appear in `file`
# while the fix is present. If someone reverts the fix, the marker
# disappears and `verify` reports it as `regressed`.

# Regenerate the manifest (signing requires @noble/ed25519)
npm i @noble/ed25519
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/regen.mjs \
  --manifest verification.md.json \
  --history verification-history.jsonl \
  --fixes witness-fixes.json

# Verify markers are present in the live tree
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/verify.mjs \
  --manifest verification.md.json

# Or authenticate the manifest and check source markers in a clean clone.
# Generated dist/ entries are explicitly reported as skipped.
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/verify.mjs \
  --manifest verification.md.json --source-only

# For a CI hash tripwire, also fail when a file changes but its marker remains.
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/verify.mjs \
  --manifest verification.md.json --source-only --strict

# Authenticity: pin a release public key (the flag wins over the env var).
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/verify.mjs \
  --manifest verification.md.json --public-key <64-hex-public-key>

Without `--strict`, marker-preserving SHA drift is reported but exits 0. `--strict` makes that drift exit 1 without changing signature or missing-file checks.

Temporal queries (ADR-103)

# Latest snapshot vs. previous
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/history.mjs \
  --history verification-history.jsonl summary

# For each currently-regressed fix, find the commit that introduced it
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/history.mjs \
  --history verification-history.jsonl regressions

# Status timeline for a specific fix
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/history.mjs \
  --history verification-history.jsonl timeline --id F1

# Machine-readable for CI
node plugins/ruflo-core/scripts/witness/history.mjs \
  --history verification-history.jsonl summary --json

`summary` exits non-zero if any fix newly regressed since the last snapshot — drop it in CI as a soft pre-merge gate.

Anti-patterns

• **Hand-editing `verification.md.json`** — always regenerate via `regen.mjs`,

otherwise the signature breaks.

• **Markers that are too generic** (`'function'`, `'import'`) — pick something

unique enough that `grep` doesn't false-positive against unrelated code.

• **Skipping the history append** — without `--history`, you lose the

ability to bisect when a regression was introduced.

• **Committing one without the other** — `verification.md.json` and

`verification-history.jsonl` belong in the same commit; the JSONL is what lets future you verify the signed manifest is the latest in the line.

Files

• `scripts/witness/lib.mjs` — shared regenerate / history logic.
• `scripts/witness/regen.mjs` — CLI: sign + append history.
• `scripts/witness/history.mjs` — CLI: query the temporal log.
• `scripts/witness/init.mjs` — CLI: bootstrap into a fresh project.
• `scripts/witness/verify.mjs` — CLI: validate signature + markers.

In ruflo's CI

`v3-ci.yml` job `witness-verify` runs after the behavioral smoke tests and before `publish`. Failure modes:

| Failure | Cause | |---|---| | `signatureValid: no` | manifest hand-edited; re-run regen | | `regressed: > 0` | a documented fix lost its marker since issuance | | `missing: > 0` | a cited dist file no longer exists; rebuild or remove the entry | | `scope: source-only` | signature + source markers checked; generated entries intentionally skipped |