Lindsey Provenance Discipline

Open-source · Python · MIT licensed

An LLM will happily write the code and the documentation that says the code works. This is the discipline that keeps those two honest.

Install

PyPIlindsey-provenance

Dependencies

Minimalstdlib + numpy

License

MITuse it freely

What it is

A small set of practices that, together, let one person keep AI-collaborative work auditable at scale. It doesn't limit what you build. It gives you a structured place where the gap between what an artifact actually is and what you wish it were shows up early — early enough to close by doing the missing work, instead of quietly absorbing it into a claim.

The reference implementation is a Python package. The companion arXiv preprint is in draft.

Install

pip install lindsey-provenance

Standard library + numpy only. No deep-ML dependencies. Python 3.10+.

The four practices

Tap a practice to see how it works.

Phase-chain freeze+

Each phase produces a SHA-256 manifest that inherits the previous phase's hash. The chain runs unbroken from the sealed baseline forward. If a file drifts silently, the next freeze fails loudly instead of letting the drift through.

Six-state proof-state ledger+

Every artifact sits at exactly one state — idea → planned → implemented → simulated → artifact-generated → physically-validated — and the machine is monotonic. You can't describe something in artifact-generated as physically validated. The words have to match the state.

Closed-form re-route at intake+

When an exchange introduces an algebraic claim, it's checked against numerical truth before anything is committed — and rerouted to a stdlib + numpy substitute when a heavy dependency isn't earning its place. Default gate: Pearson r ≥ 0.95, RMSE ≤ 10⁻⁶.

Multi-modal brief assimilation+

Briefs arrive as .docx, .eml, whiteboard photos, handwritten notes. A seven-phase pipeline ingests, classifies, and binds them to the project's evidence surface before any code is written — so intent doesn't get lost in a long thread.

Resources

→ github.com/bradmlindsey/lindsey-provenance — source, license, docs
→ Verification procedure — validate the Ed25519 retro-signed ledger yourself
→ arXiv preprint — Phase-Chain Freeze and Closed-Form Re-Route. Forthcoming.

Author

Built by Brad M. Lindsey — independent engineer, Master Electrician, Master HVAC Technician — across April 4 to May 27, 2026, in roughly 280,000 lines of LLM-collaborative Python. ORCID 0009-0004-6392-2720.