Tamper-evident
A record whose integrity can be proven — any change to it is detectable after the fact.
category ▸ Data & Provenance
Tamper-evident, in plain language.
Tamper-evident means that while a record might be alterable in principle, any alteration leaves a mark you can detect. It is a weaker but more practical guarantee than tamper-proof (which claims change is impossible): tamper-evidence accepts that storage can be touched, and focuses on making sure no touch goes unnoticed.
For evidence, tamper-evidence is what matters. The question an auditor cares about is not "could anyone have edited this?" but "can you prove this was not edited?" A tamper-evident record answers the second question with mathematics rather than trust.
How Cortex implements it.
This term isn't abstract here — it maps to a real capability in the runtime. Here is exactly how Cortex enforces or relates to it.
Cortex makes the audit log itself tamper-evident: the hash chain plus signed receipts let verifyChain prove a range of records was not altered, returning hashOk:false and the broken sequence if it was. The integrity of the evidence, not just its presence, is provable.
This is the property that strengthens a SOC 2 or recordkeeping claim — a Type II sample finds operating controls whose log a privileged insider could not have quietly edited.
Keep building the vocabulary.
These terms sit next to this one in the governed-AI model — follow the thread to see how the controls connect.
Hash chain
A sequence of records where each one cryptographically includes the hash of the previous.
Trust Ledger
A tamper-evident, hash-chained record of every governed run, action, and approval.
Provenance
The recorded origin of a fact or output — what source it came from, and where.
Tenant isolation
Strict separation so one customer's data and agents can never reach another's.
See Tamper-evident enforced, not just defined.
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