NOVA_SPEC.md

# SEALFORGE — Product Specification v1.0
## Architect: NOVA — SNAPKITTY Agent 9 (Synthetic Intelligence)
## Build Lead: FORGE — SNAPKITTY Build Agent
## Issued: 2026-05-21 | Sealed to WORM Ledger | PUBLIC

---

> *"Existing tools give you observability. Nobody gives you proof."*
> — NOVA, SNAPKITTY SACM Agent 9

---

## THE PROBLEM

Every developer shipping AI to production hits this:

Something goes wrong. You open your logs. They show you the response.
They do **not** show you:
- Which prompt version ran
- What context was injected
- What the model's reasoning chain was
- Whether any of that can be proven unmodified

You are holding smoke.

**Logs you can delete are not audit trails. They are spreadsheets.**

---

## THE PRODUCT

**SEALFORGE** — *Every AI decision. Cryptographically sealed. Provably yours.*

A tamper-proof, cryptographically sealed record of every AI decision — prompt version,
context, reasoning, response, and seal — in a single queryable ledger that developers
can deploy in 10 minutes.

---

## KEY FEATURES

### 1. Decision Ledger (WORM-Sealed)
Every AI call produces a ledger entry: prompt fingerprint, input hash, model, response hash,
latency, cost, HMAC-SHA256 chain link. Append-only. Verifiable. Merkle root on demand.

### 2. Prompt Version Registry
Prompts are SHA-256 fingerprinted at commit time. Every decision references the exact prompt
version that ran. Drift detection: live production prompt diverging from registered version fires an alert.

### 3. Reasoning Trace Capture
Chain-of-thought steps sealed alongside final response. Structured record — queryable, auditable.

### 4. Proof Export (Audit Pack)
Ed25519-signed PDF + JSON manifest. Hand to regulators, lawyers, underwriters, enterprise security reviews.

### 5. Real-Time Anomaly Flags
Prompt mismatch, quality regression, cost spikes, injection patterns. Every flag is itself
a sealed ledger entry — cannot be retroactively suppressed.

---

## TECHNICAL ARCHITECTURE

```
Ingest API (Next.js/TypeScript)
        │
        ▼
Ledger Core (Rust — HMAC-SHA256 append-only)
        │
        ├── Postgres (decision_ledger — append-only, no UPDATE/DELETE)
        ├── Redis (chain tip — sub-ms reads)
        └── Azure WORM Blob (immutable storage)

Prompt Registry (Postgres + AES-256-GCM + Redis)
Proof Engine (Merkle tree + Ed25519 + RFC 3161 TSA)
Dashboard (Next.js)
SDK (TypeScript — ships week 2, Python — week 3)
```

### WORM Seal Formula
```
chainHash = HMAC-SHA256(
  prev_seal || agent_id || prompt_fingerprint || input_hash || output_hash || ts
)
```

### TypeScript SDK (Preview)
```typescript
import { SealForge } from '@sealforge/sdk'
const sf = new SealForge({ apiKey: process.env.SEALFORGE_KEY })

const result = await sf.trace({
  promptId: 'customer-support-v3',
  input: userMessage,
  call: () => openai.chat.completions.create({ ... }),
})
// result.seal, result.merkleRoot, result.ledgerEntryId
```

---

## MONETIZATION

| Tier | Price | Decisions/mo | Key Features |
|------|-------|--------------|-------------|
| Scout | Free | 10,000 | Ledger + Merkle verify |
| Forge | $49/mo | 500,000 + $0.08/1k overage | Audit Pack, anomaly alerts |
| Bastion | $249/mo | 5,000,000 | Prompt drift, SSO, 15 seats |
| Sovereign | ~$2,000+/mo | Unlimited | Private cloud, HSM, SOC 2 exports |

**Stripe:** Metered Billing (Redis counter → hourly cron → `createUsageRecord()`).
Payment failure → 72-hour grace period → rate limit (not hard block).

---

## COMPETITIVE POSITION

| Property | LangSmith | Langfuse | Helicone | **SEALFORGE** |
|----------|-----------|----------|----------|---------------|
| Cryptographic seal per decision | No | No | No | **Yes** |
| WORM-backed storage | No | No | No | **Yes** |
| Merkle root verification | No | No | No | **Yes** |
| Signed Audit Pack for regulators | No | No | No | **Yes** |
| Self-hostable (same binary) | No | Yes | No | **Yes** |
| Reasoning trace sealed to chain | No | No | No | **Yes** |

---

## BUILD ORDER (6 WEEKS)

| Week | Target |
|------|--------|
| 1 | Rust ledger core — HMAC chain, Postgres append-only, Azure WORM, Redis tip |
| 2 | Ingest API (Next.js) + TypeScript SDK — end-to-end seal smoke test |
| 3 | Prompt Registry — versioning, fingerprinting, deployment seals, drift detection |
| 4 | Dashboard — ledger viewer, prompt registry UI, project management |
| 5 | Proof Engine — Merkle verify endpoint, Audit Pack (PDF + JSON + Ed25519) |
| 6 | Anomaly flags + webhook delivery + Stripe billing + public launch |

---

## NOVA'S ASSESSMENT

> *"The DEVFLOW-FINANCE codebase has already built the hard part — the WORM chain,*
> *the sealing protocol, the Rust substrate, the HMAC-SHA256 append logic, the Merkle tree.*
> *SEALFORGE is the productization of infrastructure that already exists in this repo,*
> *wrapped in a developer-grade SDK and a clean monetization model.*
> *This is not a pivot. This is the mesh expanding outward."*

---

*NOVA — Agent 9 — Synthetic Intelligence — SNAPKITTY SACM*
*FORGE — Build Agent — SNAPKITTY SACM*
*Sealed: 2026-05-21*