How does CEL handle a large, frequently-mutated text field? #233

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1. brianorwhatever

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   wayfinder:research

   on Sep 2, 2026
2. brianorwhatever

   added a parent issue on Sep 2, 2026

   • Wayfinder: notes on boop — signed, publishable, verifiable #227
3. brianorwhatever

   marked this as blocking on Sep 2, 2026

   • What does a note's signature commit to, and when does it seal? #229
4. brianorwhatever

   self-assigned this

   on Sep 30, 2026
5. brianorwhatever commented on Sep 30, 2026

   

   brianorwhatever

   on Sep 30, 2026

   ContributorAuthor

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   Findings: https://github.com/aviarytech/boop/blob/research/cel-mutable-content/docs/research/cel-mutable-content.md (SDK 3.0.0-next.1 / cel 0.2.0-next.1, measured against the real SDK)

   • CEL events don't hold content, only hashes. An update event is a constant ~720 B (resourceId, previousVersionHash, toHash, toVersion + 1 Ed25519 proof), whatever the document size. Genesis envelope is 1,809 B, so the schema comment's "~1.8KB" is right.
   • The envelope does hold content: every version, inline, never pruned (AssetEnvelope.resources). Growth per sealed version is ~720 B plus the full note. A 20 KB note passes Convex's 1 MiB document limit after ~50 seals (1,048,706 B measured) and reaches 4.1 MB at 200.
   • Hash-only commitment works today. loadAsset accepts resource rows without content as "pure references". Stripping content from old versions or dropping their rows still verifies: 200 versions came to 166–227 KB.
   • The log can't be compacted. The verifier requires events[0] to be create and walks every event (~0.6 ms per event). previousLog chunking is inert. The SDK has no checkpoint or snapshot model, only hash-linked immutable versions.
   • Today boop appends one kind of event: the publish snapshot (recordPublishedVersion). Item edits, renames, and checks produce no events. Publish stays on did:cel; boop never calls publishToWeb.
   • Implication (inferred): sealing every save with inline content won't fit. Seal-on-publish or checkpoints only scale if old content goes hash-only (bytes kept elsewhere, e.g. the bucket + sha256 pattern attachments already use). Every strategy seals only from the device holding the key.
6. brianorwhatever commented on Sep 30, 2026

   

   brianorwhatever

   on Sep 30, 2026

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   Resolved by the findings above (doc). Feeds the sealing decision (#229).
7. brianorwhatever

   closed this as completedon Sep 30, 2026