Individual Submission D. O. Watts Internet-Draft GoodShyt Group Inc. Intended status: Informational 30 October 2026 Expires: 3 May 2027 A Research Evidence Bundle JSON Envelope for Provenance and Replication Metadata draft-watts-research-evidence-bundle-01 Abstract This document proposes an early-stage JSON envelope for exchanging research-evidence records containing claim status, evidence tier, source provenance, methods, falsifiers, replication status, artifact digests, and privacy review. It is an individual design proposal, not an IETF consensus document. Its intended contribution must be assessed against existing provenance and research-packaging specifications before further standardization work. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 3 May 2027. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Bundle October 2026 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Status of This Memo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4. Record Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4.1. Required Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4.2. Methods, Falsifiers, and Replication . . . . . . . . . . 3 4.3. Confidence and Novelty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 5. Integrity and Canonicalization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 6. Privacy and Data Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 7. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 8. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 9. Open Issues and Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 10. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 11. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Appendix A. Changes since -00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted for discussion only. It has not been submitted to the IETF, reviewed by a working group, or endorsed by any standards body. It is not a standard and must not be cited as an accepted protocol. 2. Introduction Research records often combine a claim with heterogeneous sources, analysis methods, code, generated datasets, falsification criteria, and replication state. A minimal portable envelope can make these elements explicit across tools without claiming that a record's metadata establishes the truth of its scientific claim. This proposal uses JSON as specified in RFC 8259 and identifies JSON canonicalization under RFC 8785 as a possible basis for reproducible content digests. It is intended to complement existing provenance models, including W3C PROV-O, rather than replace them. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Bundle October 2026 3. Terminology The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. A _claim record_ is a machine-readable description of a research claim or artifact. An _evidence tier_ describes the kind of support available, not the importance or truth of the claim. A _source record_ identifies a source and, where available, a content digest and retrieval time. A _replication status_ records whether a defined protocol has been run. 4. Record Requirements 4.1. Required Fields A conforming record MUST include schema_version, record_id, title, claim_status, evidence_tier, created_at, summary, sources, methods, falsifiers, replication, confidence_rationale, novelty_status, and privacy_review. The claim_status field MUST be one of ESTABLISHED, DERIVED, CONJECTURE, ANOMALY, or POTENTIALLY NOVEL. The evidence_tier field MUST be one of T1, T2, T3, or T4. Implementations MAY define additional local values only in a versioned extension and MUST NOT silently reinterpret these base values. The sources array MUST distinguish an accessible source from a metadata-only record, an external reference, a summarized source, or a restricted source. When available, a source SHOULD include a URI, retrieval timestamp, license status, and SHA-256 digest of the exact bytes reviewed. 4.2. Methods, Falsifiers, and Replication A record MUST include at least one falsifier or a clear explanation of why falsification is not applicable. The methods field SHOULD identify data processing, software versions, parameters, and analysis steps. The replication object MUST distinguish not_run, planned, partial, reproduced, failed, and not_applicable. Unknown values MUST remain explicit. A missing posterior MUST NOT be encoded as a probability of zero. An unexecuted test MUST NOT be labelled as passing. A synthetic dataset MUST be labelled as synthetic rather than empirical. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Bundle October 2026 4.3. Confidence and Novelty A numerical confidence value MAY be included only with a documented scale and rationale. A confidence value MUST NOT be interpreted as a calibrated probability unless a calibration method is provided. POTENTIALLY NOVEL MUST be understood as a pending prior-art assessment, not a priority claim. 5. Integrity and Canonicalization When a digest or signature is computed over JSON, implementations SHOULD use a defined canonicalization procedure such as RFC 8785. The record MUST identify the digest algorithm and the exact byte representation or canonicalization process used. A matching digest establishes that the compared bytes match the digest value. It does not establish source authenticity, provenance completeness, or scientific truth. A digital signature can bind a key to a record under a trust model, but it does not validate the content of a claim. 6. Privacy and Data Governance Records SHOULD exclude credentials, access tokens, personal data not necessary for the research purpose, confidential business material, and third-party content lacking redistribution rights. A record SHOULD state whether privacy and licensing review has occurred. A hash of sensitive content can itself enable linkage and should not be treated as a substitute for access control. 7. Security Considerations Implementations MUST NOT treat a checksum as a proof of truth. If records are signed, key identity, key rotation, revocation, and verification policy must be specified by the application. If records are encrypted, encryption is outside the scope of this document and should use established, reviewed cryptographic constructions rather than custom algorithms. Applications MUST validate untrusted record input, limit resource consumption, avoid automatic execution of referenced code, and treat external source text as data rather than instructions. Timestamps and confidence values are claims made by the record producer unless independently verified. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Bundle October 2026 8. IANA Considerations This individual proposal makes no IANA request. Any future protocol version that requires a registry would need a separate registry policy and expert review. 9. Open Issues and Next Steps Before this proposal is advanced, prior-art analysis MUST compare it with W3C PROV-O, RO-Crate, BagIt, Frictionless Data Package, and existing repository metadata conventions. The schema identifier, extension mechanism, vocabulary governance, canonicalization profile, and mapping to established provenance models remain open. Interoperability testing across independent implementations is required before a standards-track proposal would be justified. 10. Normative References [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . 11. Informative References Appendix A. Changes since -00 This section is to be removed before publishing as an RFC. Editorial and tooling-conformance changes only; no technical content was changed. * Added submissionType="IETF" to * Replaced Requirements Language paragraph with the exact BCP 14 (RFC 8174) boilerplate (idnits) * Added RFC 2119 reference entry * Added RFC 8174 reference entry * Removed unreferenced bibliography entries (xml2rfc/idnits "unused reference"): RFC8259, RFC8785, RFC3339, BCP14, PROVO, RFC5378, RFC7991, RFC8493, ROCRATE, FRICTIONLESS Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Bundle October 2026 * Normalized author metadata (full name with ASCII form, initials, organization GoodShyt Group Inc., San Francisco CA postal, email, ORCID URI) * Updated document date and revision number. Author's Address Deonté O'dell Watts GoodShyt Group Inc. San Francisco, CA United States of America Email: deonte@goodshyt.fun URI: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-8586-3650 Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 6]