Timestamps are claims

Why every timestamp in a receipt is recorder-asserted, not authoritative.

A receipt records when events happened according to the recorder. A receipt does not — cannot — prove those timestamps were honest.

The verification report reflects this precisely:

timeline: {
  internallyConsistent: true,
  externallyTimestamped: false,
  notes: ["All timestamps are recorder-asserted claims."]
}

And a permanent warning:

NO_EXTERNAL_TIMESTAMP: receipt has no externally trusted timestamp

Internal consistency

The verifier does check that:

receipt.createdAt ≤ receipt.finalizedAt.
Each event's recordedAt is non-decreasing in sequence order.
Parents were recorded before children.
occurredAt (if present) is not after recordedAt.

An inconsistency here is a warning (TIMELINE_INCONSISTENT), never an integrity failure. Applications and auditors decide what internal consistency is worth.

External timestamps

The spec reserves a timestamps: [] slot on every signature record for future RFC 3161 or transparency-log countersignatures. Until 0.3 that slot stays empty and the warning stays present. It is honest.

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