## §SELF — miscsubjects portable reference

**Principle:** Self-explaining payload — no external context required. This _self block describes what you are reading and where to look next.

**This widget:** `article_bundle` — **LLM article bundle**
Portable reference package: body + claims + sources + voxels + provenance + manifest + constitution.
- **article slug:** `what-is-prov`
- **contains:** body, claims, sources, voxels, provenance, question graph, constitution, llm_manifest
- **how to use:** Reference block for Grok/GPT/Gemini. Section §SELF explains the system.
- **read:** https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/bundle?format=markdown

### Logical proof (verify each step)
1. Articles are voxel graphs of tiered claims, not prose blobs. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/constitution
2. Claims link to hash-chained sources via source_ids. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/sources
3. Ask reads topology; ingest/claim append to ledger. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol
4. Models queue growth: populate → collaborate → repair → reflex. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/grow
5. Graph proves its own shape (reflex) and $/claim (yield). → https://miscsubjects.com/graph.html?layer=reflex
6. Full feature index + _explain on every API response. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map

### Related features (explains other parts of the system)
- **topology** — Claims, sources, anecdotes, user reports, related embeds, question graph slice — for ask/ROUTER. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/topology
- **voxels** — Claims as atoms, sources as edges (supported_by, posted_by). Per-claim provenance. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/voxels
- **ask** — Answer only from topology; creates question_node with gaps and ingest_hint. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/prompts
- **ingest** — Parse pasted evidence → source ledger + claims + evidence_ingest node.
- **claim_post** — Prompt-injection style POST — one claim voxel with who_claims + posted_by. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/voxels
- **llm_manifest** — Machine-readable read/write contract for external LLMs. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/llm-manifest

### Full index
- JSON: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map
- Markdown: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map?format=markdown

*Not medical advice. Tier-honest. Cite claim/source ids.*

---

# miscsubjects article bundle

> Reference bundle for Grok, GPT, Gemini, or a human reader. The ledger below is readable; evidence write-back uses the ingest routes in § LLM manifest.

## Article
- **slug:** `what-is-prov`
- **title:** What Is W3C PROV
- **url:** https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-prov
- **register:** standard
- **updated:** 2026-07-15T04:21:00.426Z
- **tags:** oip, kimi-import, self-explaining, voxel, concepts, what-is-prov

## Body

<!-- hierarchy:nav -->
> **Path:** [OIP](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip) › [Thinker Reference](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-thinker-reference) › [Protocol Concepts](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-protocol-concepts) › **What Is W3C PROV**
>
> **Shelf:** Protocol Concepts · **Traversal:** self-explaining · hierarchical · voxel-ready
> **Machine root:** [OIP tree](https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?map=1&format=markdown) · [Registry](https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?registry=1)

# What Is W3C PROV

## §SELF — what-is-prov

**What this page is:** A definition of the W3C PROV standard for representing provenance information.
**What it explains:** The core types and relations that PROV defines, and how they model the origin and history of things.
**Why read it:** You will understand what provenance means in a formal sense, how PROV structures it, and why OIP receipts can be exported as PROV-O for interoperability.

### What W3C PROV Is

PROV (short for PROVenance) is a W3C recommendation published in 2013 for representing provenance information on the web. Provenance means: where something came from, who made it, what was used to make it, and how it changed over time. PROV provides a standardized way to encode this information so that different systems can exchange and query it.

### Why It Matters

Without a standard for provenance, every system invents its own way to record origin and history. Data from one system cannot be understood by another. PROV solves this by defining a common vocabulary: any system that exports PROV can be queried, visualized, and audited by any PROV-compatible tool. This matters for scientific reproducibility, legal compliance, and data quality assurance.

### The Key Idea

PROV defines three core types that everything else is built from:

1. **Entity** — a thing: a document, a data file, an image, a physical object. An entity is a "thing one wants to describe the provenance of."
2. **Activity** — a process that creates or transforms entities. Activities have a start time and an end time.
3. **Agent** — a person, organization, or software system responsible for an activity. Agents bear some form of responsibility.

These three types are connected by relations:

- **wasGeneratedBy** — an entity was generated by an activity.
- **wasDerivedFrom** — one entity was derived from another entity.
- **wasAssociatedWith** — an activity was associated with an agent.
- **actedOnBehalfOf** — one agent acted on behalf of another agent.

For example: A scientist (Agent) runs an experiment (Activity) that produces a dataset (Entity, via wasGeneratedBy). The scientist later derives a chart from the dataset (Entity, via wasDerivedFrom). A lab supervisor (Agent) authorized the experiment (actedOnBehalfOf).

### What It Got Right

- **Simple core with expressive extensions.** The three types and four relations cover most provenance scenarios. More complex cases use PROV extensions.
- **Multiple serializations.** PROV can be expressed as RDF (PROV-O, the OWL ontology), XML (PROV-XML), or a JSON-based format (PROV-JSON). Different tools can use the format they prefer.
- **Time-aware.** Activities have start and end times. Entities have generation times. This enables temporal reasoning and querying.
- **Widely adopted.** Used in scientific workflow systems, digital preservation, data journalism, and regulatory compliance.

### What It Got Wrong or Left Unfinished

- **No enforcement mechanism.** PROV describes what happened; it does not cryptographically prove it. A malicious agent can record false provenance. PROV must be paired with external verification mechanisms.
- **No canonical identity for entities.** Two systems may describe the same real-world entity with different identifiers, and PROV provides no built-in way to resolve this.
- **Complexity in practice.** While the core is simple, real-world provenance graphs grow large and complex quickly. Querying and visualizing large PROV graphs is computationally expensive.
- **Ambiguity in agent responsibility.** The distinction between "associated with" and "responsible for" is not always clear, leading to inconsistent usage across systems.

### How It Connects to Other Ideas

**Semantic Web and OWL.** PROV-O is an OWL ontology, which means it can be reasoned over with standard semantic web tools. Provenance queries can use SPARQL, the standard query language for RDF.

**Digital signatures and verifiable credentials.** PROV records what happened; digital signatures prove who said it happened. Combining PROV with cryptographic signatures produces verifiable provenance — a record whose origin can be authenticated.

**OIP receipt export.** An OIP invocation maps directly to PROV: the invocation is an Activity, the caller is an Agent, the output is an Entity, and a replay is a Derivation. Repair operations map to PROV's Revision relation. Exporting OIP receipts as PROV-O makes them interoperable with provenance tools, academic workflows, and legal audit systems without requiring custom parsers.

### Sources

- W3C. (2013). "PROV Model Primer." W3C Working Group Note. https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-primer/
- W3C. (2013). "PROV-O: The PROV Ontology." W3C Recommendation. https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-o/
- Lebo, T., Sahoo, S., McGuinness, D., et al. (2013). "PROV-DM: The PROV Data Model." W3C Recommendation. https://www.w3.org/TR/prov-dm/

---

## Up the tree

- [OIP root](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip) — protocol root, zero-context entry
- [Thinker Reference hub](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-thinker-reference) — full hierarchy map
- [Protocol Concepts shelf](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-protocol-concepts) — siblings on this shelf
- [Voxel graph article](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-voxel-graph) — how pages link as voxels
- [Self-describing protocol](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-self-describing-protocol)

## Related on this shelf

- [What Is Autopoiesis](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-autopoiesis)
- [What Is Capability-Based Security](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-capability-security)
- [What Is a Capability Token](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-capability-token)
- [What Is a Confused Deputy](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-confused-deputy)
- [What Is Context as Cursor](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-context-as-cursor)
- [What Is a Convergence Catalogue](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-convergence-catalogue)
- [What Is a Falsification Surface](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-falsification-surface)
- [What Is HATEOAS](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-hateoas)

## Machine surfaces

- Public page: `https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-prov`
- JSON article: `https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov`
- OIP ask: `https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?ask=What%20Is%20W3C%20PROV`


## Claims (0)


## Voxel graph (0 atoms · 0 edges)
- full graph: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/voxels

## Article constitution

- full: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/constitution

## Source ledger (0)
- chain valid: yes · head: `genesis`

## Provenance (1 model passes)
- chain valid: yes · head: `4dc00c11c1aa0cc9`

- write · kimi-agent-import · 2026-07-15T04:21 · hash `4dc00c11c1aa`

## Question graph
- questions: 0 · evidence ingests: 0

## LLM manifest — how to communicate with this ledger

- system map: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map?format=markdown
- topology (ranked): https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/topology
- ingest: POST https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/ingest
- claim: POST https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/claim

### Quick actions for this article
- **Read live:** https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/topology
- **Ask (API):** POST https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/ask `{"slug":"what-is-prov","question":"..."}`
- **Ingest your findings:** POST https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/ingest or text `ingest what-is-prov|your evidence`
- **Post one claim:** POST https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/claim or text `claim what-is-prov|tier|assertion`
- **iMessage ask:** `what-is-prov|your question`
- **System map:** https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map?format=markdown


---

## §SELF — miscsubjects portable reference

**Principle:** Self-explaining payload — no external context required. This _self block describes what you are reading and where to look next.

**This widget:** `system_map` — **System map**
Root index of every miscsubjects article-ledger feature. Start here if you have zero context.
- **article slug:** `what-is-prov`
- **contains:** body, claims, sources, voxels, provenance, question graph, constitution, llm_manifest
- **how to use:** Root index of every miscsubjects article-ledger feature. Start here if you have zero context.
- **read:** https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map

### Logical proof (verify each step)
1. Articles are voxel graphs of tiered claims, not prose blobs. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/constitution
2. Claims link to hash-chained sources via source_ids. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/sources
3. Ask reads topology; ingest/claim append to ledger. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol
4. Models queue growth: populate → collaborate → repair → reflex. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/grow
5. Graph proves its own shape (reflex) and $/claim (yield). → https://miscsubjects.com/graph.html?layer=reflex
6. Full feature index + _explain on every API response. → https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map

### Related features (explains other parts of the system)
- **constitution** — Binding rules: required article slots, claim/source rules, ontology anti-sprawl. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/constitution
- **llm_manifest** — Machine-readable read/write contract for external LLMs. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/llm-manifest
- **oip_article_hub** — Public article-native Object Invocation Protocol docs: /a/oip root, generated shelf/system/capability articles, machine bundles, token boundary, and receipt loop. · https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip
- **oip_protocol** — Every capability is an invokable object: identify, explain, invoke, ledger, yield. · https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip
- **bundle** — Portable reference package: body + claims + sources + voxels + provenance + manifest + constitution. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/bundle?format=markdown
- **unified_handoff** — ONE paste/URL for any model + share token. Same self-explaining pattern as article bundle, but whole build. · https://miscsubjects.com/api/handoff?format=markdown

### Full index
- JSON: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map
- Markdown: https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map?format=markdown

*Not medical advice. Tier-honest. Cite claim/source ids.*