Governance Ledger
gunkanmaki.ledger
A Docker Compose file for Governance Ledger alone, generated from the catalog and checked by the safety inspector. No account needed.
Append-only, hash-chained record of governance decisions in which each entry links to its predecessor by hash, so the sequence cannot be altered afterwards without the break becoming detectable.
The Governance Ledger records decisions that change the system's own rules, writing each as an entry carrying the hash of the entry before it. Because every entry commits to its predecessor, altering or removing anything invalidates every hash that follows, which makes a silent rewrite detectable rather than merely discouraged. The chain head is periodically anchored to an external timestamping service, so the record can also be shown to have existed at a given point in time. It exists so that decisions changing the rules leave a trail the operators cannot quietly revise.
You know it worked when
- The service starts and reports the current chain head hash.
- A newly written entry links to the previous head and becomes the new head.
- A verification pass over the whole chain reports every link intact.
- A deliberately altered entry causes verification to fail at that point in the chain.
- An anchoring run records an external timestamp against the current head.
Known sharp edges
- The chain must be verified after any restore, because a backup taken from the wrong point produces a chain that continues cleanly from a truncated history.
- External anchoring depends on reaching the timestamping service, and a failed anchor leaves a gap visible only if anchor coverage is checked deliberately.
- The store is append-only by design, so an entry written in error remains in the chain and must be corrected by a later entry rather than removed.
- Alpha software: the entry format and hashing scheme are not yet stable, and a format change requires re-anchoring rather than in-place migration.