Entries are added
Never edited, never removed. The log grows forward. Correcting something means writing the correction, not replacing the mistake.
The record
The thing an inquiry reads
The record is what makes the rest of it more than a claim. Watchbill™ keeps an append‑only log of every assignment, proposal, commit, and refusal, and the point of that log is that you can hand it to someone who does not trust you.
What append-only means
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Three properties, stated exactly
Tamper‑evident
Interference with the record would be evident to someone reading it. We say evident. We do not say impossible, and the difference is deliberate.
Readable by a third party
The record is built to be handed over. If it needed our narration to make sense, it would not be evidence.
What a reviewer receives
The questions a reviewer actually asks, answered by the log
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Who held authority
The named human over each watch, for each window, including when that changed and when it did not.
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What was proposed
What the agent put forward, and what the proposal said it would do that could not be undone afterward.
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What a person committed
Which irreversible acts a named human committed, and when. The commit carries the person’s name, not the agent’s.
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What was refused
The proposals the gate stopped, with the reason. Refusals are kept because a supervision record with no refusals in it is not describing supervision.
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How the watch ended
When each watch opened, how it was turned over, and when it was relieved. Nothing silently dropped between sessions.
Claim ceilings
Every claim bound to what the record shows
Language that overstates certainty destroys the whole proposition. These are the ceilings we write to, and they are not modesty. They are the product.
The record shows that a human committed every irreversible act in this window.
Not: no agent can ever act irreversibly.
The gate refused the act, and the refusal is on the record.
Not: the system makes unsafe actions impossible.
Append‑only: entries are added, never edited or removed, and edits would be evident.
Not: anything implying mathematical impossibility.
A finding on our own bench is a finding on our own bench.
Not: a general law about how AI agents behave.
Measured, not attested. A passed check is a claim, not a clearance.