---
slug: proven-work-example-one
title: Proven Work 001: can the first object prove how it was made?
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/proven-work-example-one
---

The first Proven Work object is an audit of the page that proposed Proven Work as the site’s base unit.

The question is narrow: **can the Proven Work article prove how and why it was made?**

The answer is **PARTIAL**.

The article exists. Its revisions, claims, sources, health checks, public ledger events, bundle hashes and deployment record can be opened. The coding-agent turn that produced the final revision also exists in the private ledger with the owner input, model identity, tool calls, commands and output hashes.

Two pieces remain incomplete. The first drafts did not begin with a contemporaneous inventory of every alternative considered, so some reasoning was reconstructed in later revisions. The thesis has also not yet been challenged by independent models working from one fixed evidence packet. Replay is no longer one of the gaps: the object now mints a public-safe delegated capability fixed to its redacted proof projection.

Calling the article fully proven would hide those gaps. This object records them.

## The difference

| State | What exists | What the recipient has to trust |
|---|---|---|
| Work | A finished answer or state change | The producer’s account of how it happened |
| Audited work | The answer plus checks selected by an auditor | That the audit covered the material questions and did not omit a decisive path |
| Proven Work | The answer, its formation record, consideration inventory, completeness boundary, robustness record, surety statement, replay path and open gaps | Nothing inside the declared proof boundary; uncertainty survives as an explicit object |

An audit can inspect the output. Proven Work also proves the audit’s scope: which questions it asked, which evidence it opened, which evidence was unavailable and what would reverse the verdict.

## PW-0001

```text
PROVEN_WORK_ID: PW-0001
SUBJECT: The article “Proven Work: the primitive beneath the protocol”
WORK_QUESTION: Can the article prove how and why it was made?
VERDICT: PARTIAL
PROOF_BOUNDARY: Observable creation, revision, publication and verification records held by the build
OUTSIDE_BOUNDARY: Private model state absent from the emitted record; facts unavailable to the worker; external market demand
```

The proof boundary matters. “Complete” cannot mean every fact in the universe or every activation inside a model. It means every observable piece declared necessary to reconstruct this work. A completeness claim is valid only after the required set has been named.

## Result proof

The result is public at https://miscsubjects.com/a/proven-work.

The current article object is at https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/proven-work. Its revision history is at https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/proven-work/revisions. The downloadable object manifest is at https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/proven-work/bundle?format=manifest. That manifest hashes each representation separately.

The current health audit is at https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/proven-work/health. At the time PW-0001 was assembled, the page returned `ok: true`, eight claims, three sources, 32 proof edges, every constitution slot filled and zero issues.

These records prove that the article exists in a specific form and passes the article system’s declared structural checks. Commercial correctness remains open.

## Mint the proof block

`POST https://miscsubjects.com/api/proven-work/proven-work-example-one/drop`

That owner-authenticated action mints a fresh seven-day delegated token from the build’s existing capability system. It has unlimited uses during that period and is fixed to `GET https://miscsubjects.com/api/proven-work/proven-work-example-one`. It cannot fetch another URL or accept a changed body. The returned block can be copied into any model conversation. It carries the article, proof projection, token contract and receipt ledger, plus the instruction to return `SUPPORTED_BY_RECORD`, `MISSING_EVIDENCE` or `CONTRADICTED_BY_RECORD` with exact citations.

The bearer is minted only when the block is needed. It stays outside the public article, where publication guards would correctly treat it as an exposed secret and revoke it. The public object stores the mint action, the fixed boundary and safe fingerprints of verified blocks.

The live verification minted `cap_adadcde60ff354e6`, opened the projection successfully, rejected an altered body with HTTP 403 and returned a redacted formation record.

## Formation proof

The final defining revision came from Codex turn `019fc639-5eb4-7901-bafb-96217afed644`, recorded twice in `agent_turns` as rows 7325 and 7326.

The owner input hash is `836db3665a284288a445522324cc32954090424a8095b127fcc0795cfe55fbae`. The assistant output hash is `c7027ad3c64dea74e6ce1d5b001e3b98c670cdbf4609c66e37402dd73e322eb3`. The recorded model is `gpt-5.6-sol`. The turn records 11 tool calls. The successful query that reopened that formation record is receipted at https://miscsubjects.com/receipt/inv_ufcm434s4x.

The query first failed because it requested a column absent from the deployed schema. That failed invocation is preserved at https://miscsubjects.com/receipt/inv_frb3wfk9pg. The corrected query names the failed receipt in its `repairs` field. Failure and repair remain one lineage.

The complete local session transcript was 25,424,760 bytes when inspected during this audit. Its SHA-256 at that moment was `c9ddd4e3ee994705d50e939d0706025af746a49b0495faba8b9d81cfb2f0b897`. The file continued growing because this audit was still in progress, so that hash identifies a snapshot, not the final session. The distinction is recorded instead of treating a moving file as immutable proof.

## Consideration proof

The product candidates visible in the owner’s question and the resulting work were:

| Candidate | Disposition | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Articles | Surface | An article can contain work without proving its formation or completeness |
| Audit | Component | An audit proves selected checks; its own scope and omissions still need proof |
| [Object Invocation Protocol](/a/oip) | Infrastructure | OIP makes the work openable, invokable, bounded and receipted |
| Ontology | Structure | The ontology relates the parts; it is not the completed commercial unit |
| Ledger | Evidence store | Raw records preserve formation; the declared proof boundary decides which records were required |
| Receipt | Execution proof | A receipt proves one invocation, not the completeness or quality of the whole work |
| Proven Work | Base unit | It binds the finished change to formation, considerations, completeness, robustness, surety and replay |

The original article considered most of these candidates, but it did not record this complete table before reaching its conclusion. PW-0001 therefore treats consideration completeness as reconstructed evidence, not contemporaneous evidence.

## Completeness proof

PW-0001 declares nine required pieces. The status is measured against that set.

| Required piece | Evidence | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Demand | Owner-input hash and retained turn | PASS |
| Deliverable | Public article and JSON object | PASS |
| Formation | Model, turn, tool count, payload hashes and revision lineage | PASS, owner-access layer |
| Considerations | Candidate and exclusion inventory | PARTIAL, reconstructed after initial publication |
| Source boundary | Three named work objects and source-chain endpoint | PASS |
| Result checks | Health, voxels, sources, revision and manifest endpoints | PASS |
| Robustness | Objections and changed-condition tests below | PARTIAL |
| Surety | Claim classes and unresolved claims below | PASS |
| Replay | Public proof projection plus on-demand fixed-body delegated token | PASS |

Seven pieces pass. Two are partial. Zero are silently omitted. The verdict is therefore PARTIAL.

## Robustness proof

The thesis was tested against five objections.

**“A complete log proves good work.”** False. A log can perfectly reconstruct careless work. Proven Work keeps result quality and formation reconstruction separate.

**“An audit already does this.”** False in the general case. An audit can omit a decisive issue, inherit the producer’s evidence selection or arrive after the decision. Proven Work carries the audit scope, the absence list and the reversal conditions with the work.

**“More records mean more proof.”** False. Record volume is not coverage. Completeness comes from a declared required set whose members resolve to evidence or to an explicit absence.

**“Model agreement creates surety.”** False. Several models can share the same missing source or assumption. Agreement belongs in the robustness record; it cannot replace source quality or a completeness boundary.

**“Replay proves the original result.”** Only when the environment is stable or the drift is named. A replay after a model, source, prompt, permission or external system changes creates a linked new work object. It does not overwrite the old conditions.

PW-0001 records these objections and their answers. It has not yet run the thesis through a fresh, independent model panel with a fixed evidence packet. Robustness remains PARTIAL.

## Surety

Surety is the set of guarantees earned by the record.

PW-0001 proves that the article exists, that its published structure passes the live article health contract, that revisions are retained, that the successful formation query repaired a recorded failure and that the cited coding-agent turn contains the owner input hash, assistant output hash, model identity and tool record.

The record supports the conclusion that Proven Work is a coherent base unit for this build because the existing claims, sources, receipts, revisions, permissions and replay paths all become dimensions of one completed work object.

The record does not prove that the category is unique, that buyers will adopt the name or that the current schema captures every useful class of work. A receiving model can reconstruct the declared observable record after the owner hands it a bounded proof block; the record does not claim access to private model state absent from the emitted record. Those claims remain open.

## The repair that turns PARTIAL into PROVEN

PW-0001 reaches PROVEN when two state changes are visible:

1. Consideration inventories are captured before the decision rather than reconstructed afterward.
2. A fixed evidence packet is challenged under changed assumptions and by independent models, with disagreements and reversal conditions attached.

Until then, the first object demonstrates the standard by refusing the label it has not yet earned.

## The base unit

A Proven Work object contains:

```text
demand
deliverable
formation
considerations
completeness
robustness
surety
replay
open_gaps
```

Every field points to evidence. Every completeness claim names its universe. Every guarantee names its boundary. Missing evidence lowers the status instead of disappearing from the page.

That is the difference between work that has an audit and work that can prove its own why.

