I read this as a read-only cryptographic release-provenance audit of the exact v13 candidate - I’ll locate the v13 postfreeze bundle and ledger evidence, independently recompute all hashes and parity checks, rerun the frozen verifier and sealed-wheel rehydration, then report PASS/FAIL/INCONCLUSIVE with blockers and residual risk.


I’ve located the exact bundle, its separate postfreeze receipts, and ledger line 161. The next phase is independent recomputation: I’ll use the sealed verifier interfaces only after reading their contracts, preserve read-only behavior by running against temporary rehydration paths, and compare pre/post filesystem state.


The independent derivation and both wheel RECORD audits are internally valid, but the explicit release condition “candidate must not appear in wheel fields” is already violated in four sealed `wheel_digest` fields (source evidence/data and installed evidence/data). I will still complete the requested runtime reruns so the final FAIL distinguishes that release blocker from otherwise passing cryptographic checks.


The sealed verifier’s direct advertised isolated invocation failed before verification with `ModuleNotFoundError: gateway`; its script directory does not expose the bundle package root under `python -I`. I’ll rerun it with an explicit, audited bundle-root bootstrap in an isolated temporary wrapper, then rehydrate from the sealed wheels. The direct-entrypoint failure is an additional provenance discrepancy and will remain in the verdict.


The explicit bundle bootstrap progressed further but failed on the second undeclared runtime dependency, `checkin_cli`. Thus the “frozen independent” verifier is not self-contained after its claimed original-runtime cleanup. I’ll now install only the 109 sealed wheel files into a temporary isolated venv, run both frozen and rehydrated modes there, and delete the venv; this is the only available way to complete both behavioral reruns.


I read this as the final release-provenance verdict for v13 candidate `34763d…5145b` - the audit is complete and the release verdict is **FAIL**.

## Cryptographic verdict: FAIL

### Release blocker

The candidate digest appears in **four sealed wheel-designated fields**, violating the explicit requirement that candidate identity must not appear in wheel fields:

- Source `task26-evidence/05-unknown_delivery_no_retry.json` → `delivery_capability.bindings.wheel_digest`
- Source `data/owner-actions/draft-deliveries.json` → `delivery_capability.bindings.wheel_digest`
- Installed equivalents of both paths

Each contains:

`34763d9879390c1e12ba39fcdf0dec3fd9bbde39ce8b9dda51219abbc235145b`

This conflates candidate/product identity with wheel identity.

### Additional discrepancies

- The frozen verifier is not independently executable after cleanup:
  - Direct `python -I independent_verify_candidate.py …` fails because `gateway` is unavailable.
  - Adding the bundle root progresses but then fails because `checkin_cli` is unavailable.
  - Both frozen and rehydrated modes pass only after constructing a sealed-wheel venv and explicitly bootstrapping bundle imports.
- Rehydrated Hermes installed `RECORD` is not byte-identical to the sealed original:
  - Sealed installed RECORD: `47be01e44dbfec32e479945db1aeb59318c97a03526f12a0e5acf9f63269cef6`
  - Fresh rehydration RECORD: `3c8b76c236d7a462c56441b6bdf85ba5395fcee17e728935f79fef223a200774`
  - The verifier accepts this because portable comparison excludes RECORD/path-dependent installation material.
  - Profile installed RECORD remained `e5ca6bf3d423fccf92af88a7434cb209c46875ca4807258e1c6a5a74b3de8924`.

## Checks that passed

- Canonical full-input derivation recomputed exactly to candidate `34763d…5145b`.
- Product binding recomputed to `ed1c027d…23f4c`.
- Actual wheels:
  - Hermes: `ebf330ee…43cbe`
  - Profile: `62c508d3…b4121`
- Wheel RECORD validation:
  - Hermes: 991/991 rows, RECORD `085c3b47…5ca46`
  - Profile: 58/58 rows, RECORD `45545433…ee95`
  - Zero malformed or mismatched members.
- Candidate/product are distinct from source tree and both wheel hashes; candidate equals product digest.
- Source and installed deployment receipts and product bindings are byte-identical.
- Source tree digest: `b34b2a12…a3747`.
- Outer, source, installed, authority, frozen, and rehydrated candidate parity passed.
- Authority registry and ledger: 23 correctly chained events, no hash/sequence errors; event 23 qualifies the candidate.
- Seven-clause chains passed:
  - Source head `aa64e982…7fe6`
  - Installed head `dd05e582…24e2`
- Inventory/seals passed:
  - Bundle seal `a1d3b84e…d7d56`
  - Postfreeze seal `b533a93a…4e943`
  - 354 candidate inventory entries; 356 sealed files
  - Postfreeze inventory exact
- Wheelhouse: 107 files, digest `af426798…783c3`, frozen modes, zero symlinks.
- Zero-inotify receipt: backend `dnotify_signalfd_v1`, one directory resource, zero inotify watches, five receipts.
- Recorded tests include 8,336 gateway passes, zero failures across 377 files; all focused/profile/parser/authority logs agree.
- Frozen and rehydrated verifier reruns passed inside the freshly sealed-wheel environment.
- Audit left bundle, postfreeze receipts, and ledger line 161 byte-identical; temporary runtime was removed.
- Dirty-tree snapshot remains byte-identical to current state: 157 entries at HEAD `0dc0f228…9f79`.

## Residual risk

- No signatures or external authenticity/non-repudiation are claimed.
- The candidate was produced from a 157-entry dirty tree with `commit: none`.
- Frozen verification depends on reconstructing package authority despite claiming original-runtime cleanup.
- Installed Hermes RECORD reproducibility is not enforced.

**Final decision: do not release v13 candidate `34763d…5145b`.**