{"_self":{"principle":"Self-explaining payload — no external context required. This _self block describes what you are reading and where to look next.","widget":"article_topology","feature":"topology","name":"Article topology","what":"Claims, sources, anecdotes, user reports, related embeds, question graph slice — for ask/ROUTER.","contains":"claims, sources, anecdotes, question_graph slice","slug":"what-is-prov","urls":{"read":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/topology"},"how_to_use":"Claims, sources, anecdotes, user reports, related embeds, question graph slice — for ask/ROUTER.","write":null,"imessage":null,"router_tag":null,"proof_chain":[{"step":1,"claim":"Articles are voxel graphs of tiered claims, not prose blobs.","verify":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/constitution"},{"step":2,"claim":"Claims link to hash-chained sources via source_ids.","verify":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/sources"},{"step":3,"claim":"Ask reads topology; ingest/claim append to ledger.","verify":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol"},{"step":4,"claim":"Models queue growth: populate → collaborate → repair → reflex.","verify":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/grow"},{"step":5,"claim":"Graph proves its own shape (reflex) and $/claim (yield).","verify":"https://miscsubjects.com/graph.html?layer=reflex"},{"step":6,"claim":"Full feature index + _explain on every API response.","verify":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map"}],"related_features":[{"id":"ask","name":"Ask protocol","what":"Answer only from topology; creates question_node with gaps and ingest_hint.","urls":{"read":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/prompts","write":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/ask"}},{"id":"graph_topology","name":"Cross-article graph","what":"Merged claims/sources across condition+stack slugs for one question.","urls":{"read":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/graph-topology?question=..."}},{"id":"question_graph","name":"Question graph","what":"Ask nodes (questions + gaps) and evidence_ingest nodes (pasted model output).","urls":{"read":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/question-graph","write":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/ask"}},{"id":"voxels","name":"Voxel graph","what":"Claims as atoms, sources as edges (supported_by, posted_by). Per-claim provenance.","urls":{"read":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/voxels","write":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/protocol/claim"}}],"system_map":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map","system_map_markdown":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/system-map?format=markdown","not_medical_advice":true},"_explain":{"feature":"topology","name":"Article topology","what":"Claims, sources, anecdotes, user reports, related embeds, question graph slice — for ask/ROUTER.","why":"Every feature is auditable collective intelligence","how":"Claims, sources, anecdotes, user reports, related embeds, question graph slice — for ask/ROUTER.","model":null,"verifies":null,"urls":{"read":"https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/what-is-prov/topology"},"imessage":null,"router":null,"related":[{"id":"ask","what":"Answer only from topology; creates question_node with gaps and ingest_hint."},{"id":"graph_topology","what":"Merged claims/sources across condition+stack slugs for one question."},{"id":"question_graph","what":"Ask nodes (questions + gaps) and evidence_ingest nodes (pasted model output)."},{"id":"voxels","what":"Claims as atoms, sources as edges (supported_by, posted_by). Per-claim provenance."}],"not_medical_advice":true},"slug":"what-is-prov","title":"What Is W3C PROV","register":"standard","tags":["oip","kimi-import","self-explaining","voxel","concepts","what-is-prov"],"updated_at":"2026-07-15T04:21:00.426Z","body_excerpt":"<!-- hierarchy:nav -->\n> **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**\n>\n> **Shelf:** Protocol Concepts · **Traversal:** self-explaining · hierarchical · voxel-ready\n> **Machine root:** [OIP tree](https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?map=1&format=markdown) · [Registry](https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?registry=1)\n\n# What Is W3C PROV\n\n## §SELF — what-is-prov\n\n**What this page is:** A definition of the W3C PROV standard for representing provenance information.\n**What it explains:** The core types and relations that PROV defines, and how they model the origin and history of things.\n**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.\n\n### What W3C PROV Is\n\nPROV (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.\n\n### Why It Matters\n\nWithout 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.\n\n### The Key Idea\n\nPROV defines three core types that everything else is built from:\n\n1. **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.\"\n2. **Activity** — a process that creates or transforms entities. Activities have a start time and an end time.\n3. **Agent** — a person, organization, or software system responsible for an activity. Agents bear some form of responsibility.\n\nThese three types are connected by relations:\n\n- **wasGeneratedBy** — an entity was generated by an activity.\n- **wasDerivedFrom** — one entity was derived from another entity.\n- **wasAssociatedWith** — an activity was associated with an agent.\n- **actedOnBehalfOf** — one agent acted on behalf of another agent.\n\nFor 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).\n\n### What It Got Right\n\n- **Simple core with expressive extensions.** The three types and four relations cover most provenance scenarios. More complex cases use PROV extensions.\n- **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.\n- **Time-aware.** Activities have start and end times. Entities have generation times. This enables temporal reasoning and querying.\n- **Widely adopted.** Used in scientific workflow systems, digital preservation, data journalism, and regulatory compliance.\n\n### What It Got Wrong or Left Unfinished\n\n- **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.\n- **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.\n- **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 expe","ranking":"safety-first (interaction_risk/limitations), then quote-gated effective_weight","claims":[],"sources":[],"anecdotal_sources":[],"scientific_sources":[],"user_reports":[],"related_articles":[],"question_graph":{"slug":"what-is-prov","questions":[],"evidence":[],"edges":[],"counts":{"questions":0,"evidence":0,"edges":0}},"honesty":{"active_claims":0,"retracted_claims":0,"cut_claims":0,"challenges":0,"scrub_events":0,"note":"Retracted/cut claims stay on ledger but are excluded from ask unless ?include_inactive=1"},"counts":{"claims":0,"claims_total":0,"sources":0,"anecdotal":0,"scientific":0,"user_reports":0,"questions":0,"evidence_ingests":0}}