Independent Submission D. O. Watts Internet-Draft GoodShyt Group Inc. Intended status: Informational 30 October 2026 Expires: 3 May 2027 Research Evidence Envelope: A Provenance-Oriented Interchange Record draft-watts-research-evidence-envelope-01 Abstract This informational scaffold sketches a versioned record for tracking scientific claims, source provenance, evidence classes, uncertainty, falsifiers, replication procedures, and artifact hashes. It is not an IETF standard, has not undergone IETF review, and does not define a wire protocol. 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. 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. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Envelope October 2026 Table of Contents 1. Status and scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 2. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 3. Problem statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 4. Record fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 5. Security and privacy considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 6. Integrity and scientific limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 7. IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8. Open issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 9. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Appendix A. Changes since -00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 1. Status and scope This document is a working proposal. The format is intended for local archives and possible future interoperability review. It must not be represented as an IETF-approved specification. 2. Requirements Language 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. 3. Problem statement Research archives frequently separate claims, citations, code, datasets, test results, and revision history. A compact record can link these items while preserving uncertainty and provenance. This proposal is a data model only; it does not prescribe transport, registry, trust authority, or a scientific evaluation method. 4. Record fields A record SHOULD include a stable identifier, title, project identifier, claim class, evidence tier, source references, timestamp, revision, uncertainty statement, falsifier, replication protocol, status, and artifact hashes where available. Unknown fields SHOULD remain unknown rather than be inferred. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Envelope October 2026 Suggested claim classes are ESTABLISHED, DERIVED, CONJECTURE, ANOMALY, and POTENTIALLY_NOVEL. These labels are descriptive metadata, not certification. Suggested evidence tiers are T1 empirical, T2 derived, T3 rigorous conjecture, and T4 speculative. Implementations may add values using a documented extension mechanism. { "schema_version": "1.0", "record_id": "MCDS-FP-001", "title": "Third-generation flavor portal extension", "claim_class": "CONJECTURE", "evidence_tier": "T4", "sources": ["conversation:2026-10"], "claim": "A flavor portal could connect a hidden sector to semitauonic B decays.", "uncertainty": "No explicit Lagrangian or global fit supplied.", "falsifier": "A validated joint fit excludes all viable coupling regions.", "replication_protocol": "Define interactions; match EFT; run RG; fit correlated observables.", "status": "conceptual", "artifacts": [] } 5. Security and privacy considerations Records may expose unpublished research, personal information, credentials, proprietary source code, or sensitive experimental data. Implementations MUST avoid publishing secrets and MUST apply access controls appropriate to the data. Hashes support integrity checks but do not establish source truth, authorship, or scientific validity. Signatures, if added, require key-management and revocation rules. 6. Integrity and scientific limitations A provenance record does not prove a claim. Evidence classes and confidence labels are self-reported unless supported by review procedures. Dataset versions, analysis code, dependencies, random seeds, and negative results should be retained when applicable. Novelty and priority claims require independent prior-art review. 7. IANA considerations This scaffold requests no IANA actions. Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Envelope October 2026 8. Open issues Open issues include schema formalization, canonical JSON serialization, controlled vocabularies, extension handling, artifact- signature format, privacy classification, retention, interoperability tests, and whether a genuine community need exists. 9. Informative 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, . 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 BCP 14 Requirements Language section (document uses uppercase requirement keywords without the boilerplate; idnits error) * Added RFC 2119 reference entry * Added RFC 8174 reference entry * Removed unreferenced bibliography entries (xml2rfc/idnits "unused reference"): RFCJSON * Normalized author metadata (full name with ASCII form, initials, organization GoodShyt Group Inc., San Francisco CA postal, email, ORCID URI) * Added title abbrev "Research Evidence Envelope" for page header (title > 40 chars; xml2rfc warning) * Updated document date and revision number. Author's Address Watts Expires 3 May 2027 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Research Evidence Envelope October 2026 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 5]