Provenance
Never lose the why behind your decisions.
Provenance is a tool for building requirements traceability, from source to requirement to rule. A Rule is an atomic behavioural obligation that can exist before its implementation; #[rule("rule_id")] binds production code to it, and #[verifies("rule_id", method)] binds evidence.
Installation
Install and initialize Provenance in a TypeScript project:
The initializer detects npm, pnpm, Yarn, Bun, Deno, or Nub. It installs
@quality-sh/provenance as an exact development dependency, creates the
default scope, validates the state, and ignores .provenance/cache/.
Install the CLI from crates.io:
To build the CLI from this source tree:
The binary lands at target/release/provenance. Put it on your PATH.
Quick start
# install the development dependency and set up the repository
# put something in the graph
# see where things stand
Essential commands
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
provenance prime |
Bounded low-res graph frontier; proposals surface separately when evidence or claimed territory demands them |
provenance check |
Validate the state files |
provenance materialize |
Rebuild the SQLite query cache |
provenance graph <requirement> |
Show the neighbourhood of a requirement |
provenance graph-reference issue|show|verify|exact-export |
Hand off an immutable pinned graph |
provenance traceability <rule> |
Walk a Rule back to its Requirement and any producing Resolution |
provenance proposals surface --scope default --changed-path <path> |
Surface undisposed proposals when current work touches their evidence or explicit territory |
provenance wiki build / provenance wiki serve |
Build or serve the generated wiki with domain browsing and offline search |
provenance coverage scan --path . --validate-rules |
Check bindings and report active Rules with no implementation or verification |
provenance sdk check-statement / provenance sdk apply / provenance sdk verification-runs |
ASD-STE100 statement preflight, typed desired state, and callback evidence protocol |
provenance stale --since main |
Report whether a diff touched, moved, or removed any graph evidence path |
provenance skills install |
Install the bundled agent skills (provenance-shaping, provenance-fork-tournament, provenance-swarm-backtrace, provenance-grounded-writing) |
The repository uses the skills/<name>/SKILL.md layout, so the bundled skills can also
be installed through the skills.sh ecosystem with npx skills add <owner/repo>.
Documentation
- Shaping, the refinement method and how agent sessions run it
- CLI, the full command surface
- State format and cache, how storage works
- TypeScript SDK POC, typed declarations, Node verification, and findings
Licensed under BUSL-1.1.