# Governed Execution

URL: https://docs.nexart.io/docs/governed-execution

Cryptographically verifiable evidence of governed AI and multi-agent workflows: execution path, governance signals, resource safety and concrete causal lineage.

@nexart/governed-execution0.4.2NexArt Node0.30.1

Definition. Governed Execution records the execution path, policy and governance decisions, resource-safety results and causal lineage of an AI or software workflow as a Certified Execution Record with bundle type `cer.governed.execution.v1`. A Governed CER is execution evidence, not an event log: its protected content is bound by a deterministic `certificateHash` that any holder can recompute.

NexArt is an AI Evidence Layer and verifiable execution infrastructure. Observability helps operators understand behaviour; logs record events but require trust in whoever produced them; governance defines policies and decision controls. NexArt creates independently verifiable evidence of what was recorded.

## Identifiers

- `bundleType: cer.governed.execution.v1`
- `version: 0.1` (the protected container version, independent of the npm package version)
- `profile.id: cage-governance-v1`, `profile.version: "1"`

## Topology versus lineage

Static topology describes what could execute. It may contain cycles and self-edges, for example a bounded refinement loop. Concrete lineage describes what actually executed and must be acyclic. See Topology and Concrete Lineage.

## Five separate operations

Producer to independent verification. Sealing, stateless verification, attestation and independent verification are distinct steps. None of them publishes the record. Attested governed records default to hidden; there is no governed public-reseal workflow.- Local sealing. The SDK creates the canonical CER and its `certificateHash`. No Node, API key or receipt is involved.
- Stateless verification. `POST /v1/cer/verify` validates a submitted CER and returns structured results. It does not persist, publish or sign.
- Authenticated attestation. `POST /api/attest` requires an API key, validates the bundle, persists an attestation under the Node's retention and visibility rules and returns a signed receipt.
- Independent verification. A holder of the complete CER verifies integrity, the receipt signature and the verification-envelope signature using keys from `GET /.well-known/nexart-node.json`, without trusting a Node `ok` field.
- Public publication. A separate outcome. Governed records default to `hidden`; see persistence versus publication for what Node 0.30.1 supports.

## What it proves and does not prove

What this proves
- Integrity of the protected CER bundle.
- Causal consistency of recorded execution steps.
- Validity of selected concrete edges against supplied topology.
- Node attestation, when receipt signatures verify.
- Resource-safety validation reported by the governed verifier.
- That the supplied stateHash string remained protected inside the signed bundle.

What this does not prove
- That a producer's state preimage was complete or truthful.
- That `stateHash` was recomputed by the Node.
- That `signals.governanceSignature` authenticates the producer.
- That a model output was correct, safe, fair or compliant.
- That an authenticated attestation is automatically public.

## Next

- Quickstart
- Governed CER Schema
- CAGE-Compatible Governed Execution
- Verification Semantics