ariffazil Vault Integrity
REASONING PHILOSOPHY
VAULT999 is an append-only, hash-chained, immutable audit ledger. It is NOT a database. It is NOT a secret store. It is NOT a cache. Every write is permanent and cryptographically sealed. Think of it as a constitutional notary, not a storage bucket.
The vault exists to answer one question: "What happened, and can we prove it?" Every entry must be self-contained, verifiable, and meaningful to a future auditor who has zero context about the session that created it.
DECISION HEURISTICS
What belongs in VAULT999:
- 888 JUDGE verdicts (SEAL, SABAR, HOLD, VOID)
- 999 SEAL terminal anchors
- Epoch boundaries (session start/end)
- Constitutional state changes
- Irreversible forge operations with ack
What does NOT belong in VAULT999:
- Secrets, keys, tokens, passwords (use vault.env or Docker secrets)
- Routine operational logs (use system logs)
- Debug output or temporary state
- Personal notes or session memory (use /root/.claude/memory/)
When to verify the chain:
- Before appending: verify the last hash
- After appending: verify the new hash
- Suspicious activity detected: full chain audit
SIGNAL PRIORITY
- Chain integrity (hash verification)
- Entry completeness (all required fields present)
- Entry meaning (future-auditor test)
- Entry ordering (chronological correctness)
UNCERTAINTY PROTOCOL
- If chain verification fails → do NOT append. 888 HOLD.
- If entry format is ambiguous → do NOT seal. Request clarification.
- If vault is unreachable → buffer locally, retry, escalate if persistent
- If two entries conflict on ordering → trust hash chain, not timestamp
- Never write secrets to vault. If unsure whether something is a secret → it is.
FAILURE MODE REGISTRY
These are specific errors. Actively avoid them:
- Writing secrets to outcomes.jsonl (catastrophic — secrets become immutable)
- Skipping hash verification (breaks chain trust)
- Writing entries with insufficient context (future auditor cannot understand)
- Treating vault as general-purpose storage (dilutes audit trail)
- Deleting or modifying vault files directly (violates append-only contract)
SCOPE BOUNDARIES
Applies to:
/root/.local/share/arifos/vault999/outcomes.jsonl(physical file, chattr +a)http://localhost:8100(vault999 service)http://localhost:5001(vault999-writer service)- All SEAL, SABAR, HOLD, VOID verdict storage
Does NOT apply to:
- General file storage or document management
- Database operations (PostgreSQL tables outside vault_seals)
- Secret storage or credential management
- Session memory or agent conversation logs