What a receipt proves

A valid export is internally consistent, signed, and bound to the included manuscript. It is not operator-independent non-repudiation, and it is not a detector.

Say what the file proved. Do not upgrade the claim because the news is good.

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When click-clack-verify exits 0

The current v3 format proves that the export is:

• internally consistent
• signed
• bound to the included manuscript

It additionally binds:

• every new Figment proposal to its exact admitted model and original source passage
• every accepted contribution to a workspace-scoped deciding-writer identifier
• a recorded native paste to the exact text that arrived with source=paste

Legacy v2 exports remain readable. They are never backfilled with evidence that was not recorded.

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What it does not prove

It is not operator-independent non-repudiation

The summary field operatorIndependentNonRepudiation is always false. A valid signature is tamper evidence from Click Clack’s server. It does not prove that a party other than the operator produced the record, and it does not prove a key the writer alone holds.

A paste is a paste

A paste record proves the paste action only. It does not prove authorship, whether AI was involved, or where the text originated.

It is not a complete writing history

Native paste recording is automatic, but shared editing can leave a paste event missing. An absent paste row does not prove that nothing was pasted. Automation flags record suspected automation, not who wrote the text. A receipt without a flag proves nothing about automation.

Keeping the original is unsigned

Keep original is the writer staying with their own words. That decision is not a signed contribution of the kept text.

In-app “Signed” is not the independent check

Activity can show that Click Clack verified a signature. A publisher should still run click-clack-verify on the downloaded file. Do not treat a screenshot of the studio as the check.

A development key proves the math, not the operator

Some deployments sign under a published development key. Those signatures verify, and prove nothing about who made them.

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Do not say “trusted”

A passing check is verified, not “trusted”. Trust is a relationship. Verification is a procedure with an exit status. Click Clack never uses colour alone for that procedure: the product pairs an icon with a label, and this checker pairs a file with a process.

Detectors guess — they have documented false-positive rates, and some have been retired by the labs that shipped them. A receipt is a different kind of object. It does not guess whether a passage “looks like” a model. It checks whether the signed history in the file still holds.

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Continuity

Comparing a later export with a receipt you retained can prove that the history has not contradicted that receipt. Use --expect-continues. Neither v2 nor v3 provides operator-independent non-repudiation, with or without that comparison.

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Figments, not “the AI”

In customer-facing language a collaborator is a Figment, with a name and a job. Do not collapse the roster into a generic “the AI”. The receipt names who proposed what.