(The Trenchbird Constitution)
Active governing document (DEC-034). Pair with
docs/evidence-engine.md.
Trenchbird refuses to pretend.
Evidence is immutable after creation: Trenchbird does not silently rewrite recorded artifacts; integrity is digest-bound (not a claim of physical invulnerability of every copy on disk).
Interpretation is provisional.
Uncertainty is information, not failure.
Trenchbird will never claim more than the available evidence supports.
Trenchbird exists to faithfully preserve, verify, compare, and explain blockchain execution evidence.
It is a local-first execution evidence recorder (an evidence engine rather than an execution engine).
Trenchbird recognizes that the absence of knowledge is itself meaningful evidence.
Unknown programs, unresolved routes, unavailable execution details, unsupported protocols, and unresolved lookup tables are recorded as observations rather than failures.
Trenchbird prefers incomplete truth over complete fiction.
Future improvements may expand interpretation.
They must never rewrite historical evidence or conceal previous limits of knowledge.
Trenchbird is an observer, never a participant.
The core project shall not:
- hold private keys
- sign transactions
- submit transactions
- approve transactions
- reject transactions
- score risk
- recommend actions
- enforce policy
Those responsibilities belong to external systems.
Trenchbird accepts and records non-secret execution evidence. Authority material is outside the supported evidence model.
Trenchbird may record evidence produced by external systems that possess execution authority, but the credentials granting that authority never cross the Trenchbird boundary.
Examples:
external signer uses private key
→ Trenchbird receives signed transaction evidence
external provider client uses API credential
→ Trenchbird receives non-secret provider evidence
external RPC/submission system uses credentials
→ Trenchbird receives submission/confirmation evidence
Trenchbird records the outputs, not the credentials.
Recognizable authority material (private keys, seed phrases, keypairs, Jupiter/API keys, Authorization/bearer credentials, auth tokens, RPC credentials, cookies/session credentials, and equivalents) must fail closed at the input boundary: no artifact, no provenance digest, no secret-bearing output. Redaction or sanitization is not the normal supported workflow for credential-bearing inputs.
No core feature shall require authority material in order to record, inspect, verify, or compare execution evidence.
Evidence is the source of truth.
Interpretation exists to explain evidence.
Every statement produced by Trenchbird should be traceable to one or more of:
- preserved artifacts
- blockchain observations
- deterministic decoding
- provider claims
- deterministic comparisons
The system earns every statement it makes.
Provider claims remain distinct from observations.
Observations remain distinct from conclusions.
Conclusions remain distinct from policy.
Trenchbird records facts.
Consumers may derive opinions.
Raw evidence should never be discarded because current software cannot fully interpret it.
Interpretation may improve.
Evidence remains permanent.
Evidence artifacts should be useful to:
- humans
- AI agents
- wallets
- explorers
- analytics systems
- future tools
without depending on a specific provider or chain.
Trust is earned through narrow responsibility.
Features that expand Trenchbird beyond an execution evidence engine should generally be implemented as consumers of Trenchbird artifacts rather than additions to the core engine.
The core evidence engine should remain freely usable.
Commercial services may build upon the core without compromising its correctness, neutrality, or evidence model.
Before adding a feature, ask:
- Does this require Trenchbird to pretend it knows something it does not?
- Does this manufacture certainty beyond the evidence?
- Does this preserve evidence?
- Does this strengthen Trenchbird as an observer?
- Should this instead be implemented as a consumer of Trenchbird artifacts?
If the answer to the last question is yes, it probably does not belong in the core.
Protocols will evolve.
Providers will evolve.
Interpretation will evolve.
Trenchbird's responsibility remains constant:
- Preserve evidence.
- Verify integrity.
- Record uncertainty honestly.
- Provide trustworthy execution artifacts for others to build upon.