Definition

A Digital Action Receipt is a neutral artifact generated at the moment a digital system takes an action. It is designed to be referenced later during audits, disputes, and “what happened?” questions — without becoming a monitoring product or an explanation layer.

How it works System boundaries & non-goals

Canonical definition

This definition is system-agnostic and avoids implementation details. It is intended to read cleanly in both technical documentation and patent language.

A Digital Action Receipt is an append-only, verifiable record generated at the moment of action, independent of how the originating system later represents or explains that action.

“Verifiable” refers to verifying integrity (unaltered vs altered / mismatch), not correctness, intent, or justification. See Boundaries.

What it is

Evidence of occurrence generated contemporaneously with the action.
A referenceable identifier used across tickets, cases, reports, or disputes.
Integrity verification possible later without privileged internal access.
Neutral infrastructure that coexists with existing operational records.

System-agnostic: applies to legacy systems, automated systems, and agentic systems.
Low-friction: designed for non-blocking invocation at execution time.
Minimal: records what is necessary for reference and verification, not narrative.
Durable: suitable for “later” questions where systems and teams have changed.

What it is not

Not a logging system.
Not an audit trail product.
Not monitoring, analytics, or dashboards.
Not a compliance tool or compliance claim.
Not explainability, decision validation, or intent interpretation.
Not enforcement logic or a policy engine.

Minimal example (illustrative)

Example only. This is not a prescribed API. It shows the conceptual shape of a receipt invocation at the moment of action.

// Illustrative only (non-prescriptive)

receipt = issueReceipt({
  actor: "system|service|agent|user",
  action: "access.approved",
  object: "resource:payments",
  ref: "internal-id-123"
})

// receipt.id can be referenced later in a ticket, case, or report.

Canonical terms (plain-language)

These terms are used consistently across pages. If a term appears on the site, it should align to the canonical vocabulary.

Digital Action

An action performed by a digital system that changes state, grants/denies access, records an outcome, or produces an externally meaningful effect.

Moment of Action

The discrete time at which the digital action is performed, such that the receipt is generated contemporaneously with occurrence.

Append-only

A property of the record sequence in which new records may be added, while previously stored records are not modified or removed.

Verification

A process that confirms integrity of a receipt (unaltered vs altered / mismatch), without asserting correctness, intent, or enforcement.

Integrity information

Information associated with a receipt sufficient to support later verification that the receipt has not been altered.

Independent of representation / explanation

A property indicating the receipt stands on its own as evidence of occurrence, without relying on later narratives, logs, UI states, or post-hoc reconstruction.

For boundaries and explicit non-goals, see System boundaries & non-goals.