Stage353: Verification Transparency Chain Layer

Stage353 extends Stage352 by recording the Stage352 verification result into a transparency chain.

What Stage353 Adds

• Reads docs/signatures/stage352_signature_manifest_verification.json
• Generates a SHA256 hash for the Stage352 verification result
• Creates a transparency entry for the verification result
• Chains entries with previous_hash and entry_hash
• Carries forward the Stage352 decision
• Fails closed if Stage352 is reject, block, or unknown
• Does not claim external Rekor registration
• Does not claim Bitcoin anchoring

Public Evidence

• docs/transparency/stage353_verification_transparency_result.json
• docs/transparency/stage353_verification_transparency_chain.json
• docs/transparency/stage353_verification_transparency_summary.txt

Decision Model

• accept: Stage352 verification result is acceptable and chain link is valid
• warn: Stage352 result was warning-level and logged as warning
• reject: Stage352 failed, is missing, or the chain is invalid

Safety Boundary

Stage353 does not publish private keys, raw secrets, fake signature claims, external Rekor claims, or Bitcoin anchor claims.

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Stage354: Signature Key Rotation Ledger Layer

Stage354 adds a signature key lifecycle and rotation ledger on top of Stage353.

It records safe public metadata for:

• GPG
• Sigstore OIDC
• Ed25519 witness
• PQC ML-DSA intent

Stage354 also binds the Stage178 framework:

• Assumption
• Threat Model
• Guarantee

Safety Boundary

Stage354 does not publish:

• private keys
• raw secrets
• seed material
• real PQC private key material
• fake active PQC key claims
• fake external Rekor claims

Current Decision

accept_policy_initialization

This means the key rotation policy ledger was initialized safely,
but no real production key rotation is being falsely claimed.