Provenance Model

Status

  • Type: Normative
  • Stability: Draft

Motivation

A diagnostic without traceability is difficult to trust. FerroTeX treats provenance as a first-class output.

Requirements

  • Every event MUST contain a log_span referencing the source log buffer.
  • Every diagnostic MUST contain provenance that allows the user (or tooling) to locate the originating log excerpt.

Provenance Fields

Diagnostics SHOULD include:

  • provenance.log_span
  • provenance.log_excerpt (optional, bounded length)
  • provenance.file_stack (optional)
  • provenance.engine (optional: engine name/version)

Bounding and Safety

  • Excerpts MUST be length-bounded.
  • Avoid including absolute paths unless explicitly configured.

UI Implications

The VS Code extension SHOULD provide a quick way to:

  • open the log excerpt
  • show file stack at time of emission
  • display confidence