Proof Protocol / PP-SPEC-081-UMPIRE-ASSAY-PROTOCOL

Reproof: The Umpire Assay Protocol

Ownership and Attribution Notice

Reproof and the Umpire Assay Protocol (PP-SPEC-081) are authored by Craig Thomas Ellrod and published as part of Proof Protocol. Copyright (c) 2026 Craig Thomas Ellrod.

Any use, implementation, derivative, citation, or incorporation of this work, in whole or in part, MUST attribute Craig Thomas Ellrod and Proof Protocol. See NOTICE.md.

Licensed under the Proof Protocol License 1.1 (see LICENSE.md); text CC BY 4.0 under Part A, which grants no patent rights. Original inventor: Craig Thomas Ellrod (ORCID 0009-0004-1058-7666).

Patents. Patent terms are in PATENT-SCHEDULE.md. Claims not listed there are reserved by Craig Thomas Ellrod. Licensing: 1proofprotocol@gmail.com.

One assay is a claim. Two independent assays are a fact.

Anyone can verify a Proof Protocol record: recompute the root, check the signatures, confirm the receipt. That proves the record is intact. It does not prove anyone else would get the same result. Reproof does.

How it works

 Head Assay (the original proof, already registered)
        |
        |  Reproof Manifest: Split, Splitting Limit, Party Set,
        |  umpire rule, publication commitment. Anchored BEFORE the check.
        v
 Check Assay: new Issuer, new Witness, new everything,
 same control (same Fingerprint), fresh canaries, unannounced
        |
        v
 Comparator: Cell by Cell, mechanical, limits fixed in advance
        |
   +----+-----------------+------------------+
   |                      |                  |
 Agree               Diverge             Insufficient
 -> Reproven         -> Umpire Assay      -> no claim either way
                        drawn by beacon,
                        independent of both
                        -> head_upheld / check_upheld /
                           both_within_umpire / disputed

Declare first. What is being reproven, by whom, and how close counts as agreement are anchored before the Check Assay commits.
Hold the control constant. Same DUT Fingerprint, captured independently. Same environment (Instance Reproof) or same Comparability Class (Class Reproof).
Never reuse the test. Fresh canaries, nonces, and effect tokens. Reusing them is replay, not reproduction.
Compare mechanically. Per technique class and target level. Agree, Diverge, or Insufficient. Never fudged.
Settle by umpire. Divergence goes to a third assay drawn by public beacon from a declared pool. Its ruling stands.
Publish everything. Agreeing, diverging, insufficient, abandoned, lapsed. A status shown without its history is non-conforming.

Why it is different

Record verification is not reproof. A perfectly sealed record can be perfectly wrong.
Independence across every seam. No party, or affiliate, from the original occupies any seam of the check.
Repeat runs do not count. The same parties getting the same answer is consistency, not independence.
Limits before results. Nobody picks the Splitting Limit after seeing the numbers.
No shopping. Every committed check is published. One umpire per divergence, drawn not chosen.
The original is never touched. Reproof Status is computed from the Registry by anyone, the same way by a person and a machine.
Proof expires. Change the control and the reproof ends with it.

Repository

Path	Contents
SPEC.md	The normative specification, PP-SPEC-081
docs/overview.md	Plain-English walkthrough
docs/glossary.md	Terms
docs/conformance.md	Conformance checklist
docs/faq.md	Common questions
schemas/reproof.schema.json	Reproof Manifest, Comparison, Umpire Draw, Umpire Record schemas
schemas/ai-disclosure.schema.json	Authorship Disclosure schema (077 21.15)
CHANGELOG.md	Version history
CONTRIBUTING.md	How to engage
NOTICE.md	Attribution requirements
AI_DISCLOSURE.md	What was human-authored and what was AI-drafted
FUNDING.md	Funding disclosure
REVIEWERS.md	Review disclosure
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS.md	Credits
ETHICS.md	Proof Economy Code of Ethics
CITATION.cff	Citation metadata
SECURITY.md	Reporting protocol flaws
PATENT-SCHEDULE.md	Patent terms
LICENSE.md	License terms
LICENSE-CC-BY-4.0.md	CC BY 4.0, specification text

Status

Draft, version 0.1.0, 2026-10-23. Maintained by Craig Thomas Ellrod as part of Proof Protocol.

Builds on PP-SPEC-077 (Dead Canary), PP-SPEC-078 (Jailed Canary), PP-SPEC-079 (Coal Mine), and PP-SPEC-080 (Pithead). Records are registered to a PP-SPEC-004 registry; the public instance is proofregister.com.

Archived on Zenodo: v0.1.0, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23607722. All versions: 10.5281/zenodo.23607721.

Related: Proof Economy Prior Art Declaration, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.21379780, Category 4a, Reproducibility requirement. PP-SPEC-077, ProofSwarm: The Dead Canary Protocol, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23285060.

Cite

Ellrod, C. (2026). Reproof: The Umpire Assay Protocol (PP-SPEC-081), v0.1.0.
Craig Thomas Ellrod, Proof Protocol. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23607722

View source on GitHub