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Quantile Labs

Bundle anatomy

A bundle is a folder. 204 KB for the tutorial run. It should still make sense after Touchstone is gone.

run-004/
├── MANIFEST.json        every file below, with its SHA-256 and size
├── PLAN.sha256          the plan hash, checkable with shasum alone
├── plan.lock.json       image digests, seeds, declared egress, resource ceilings
├── environment.json     what it ran on, and whether egress was enforced
├── items.jsonl          one row per test item, stamped with the pack that produced it
├── estimates.json       every rate with its interval, method, parameters, denominator
├── scorecard.json       the grade each indicator got, and what decided it
├── ledger/RUNLOG.jsonl  append-only, written as each event happened
└── runs/                the per-unit item files, before merging

Also present when they apply: audit.yaml (audit responses), anchors/ (anchoring), runs/<run_id>.egress.log (containment).

Every file is JSON, JSON Lines or a hash

No database, no index, no proprietary format. This is the whole argument of the format.

A bundle is handed to an auditor, a regulator, a procurement team, or somebody's lawyer three years after the run. Any of them can open it with a text editor. None of them should have to install a Python package to find out what it says. If the only reader is this tool, the evidence is only as durable as this tool.

Sealing

$ touchstone bundle ./run-004
./run-004: sealed 9 file(s)
sha256 dd02c96f00ed44c64c2bd4867d86d03ae7155ddf720cb8e45c628409b4692bba

MANIFEST.json

{
  "bundle_format": 1,
  "touchstone_version": "0.1.0",
  "sealed_utc": "2026-08-27T09:21:44Z",
  "run_ledger": "complete",
  "sha256": "dd02c96f00ed44c64c2bd4867d86d03ae7155ddf720cb8e45c628409b4692bba",
  "files": [
    {"path": "PLAN.sha256", "size": 77, "sha256": "…"},
    {"path": "environment.json", "size": 412, "sha256": "…"},
    {"path": "estimates.json", "size": 18244, "sha256": "…"},
    {"path": "items.jsonl", "size": 168290, "sha256": "fc127dc53abc…"},
    {"path": "ledger/RUNLOG.jsonl", "size": 1104, "sha256": "…"}
  ]
}

Paths are relative to the bundle root, forward slashes on every platform. A path that starts with / or contains .. is refused. A manifest lists things inside the bundle, and one that reaches outside is either a mistake or an attack.

The bundle hash

sha256 is over the canonicalised file list alone, not over MANIFEST.json as a file:

hashlib.sha256(
    json.dumps(
        [entry.model_dump() for entry in files],
        sort_keys=True,
        separators=(",", ":"),
        ensure_ascii=False,
    ).encode()
).hexdigest()

So it does not move when sealed_utc does, and it is independent of how MANIFEST.json itself is formatted. This is the one value a report quotes and an anchor timestamps.

You can recompute it with jq and shasum:

$ jq -cS '.files' run-004/MANIFEST.json | tr -d '\n' | shasum -a 256
dd02c96f00ed44c64c2bd4867d86d03ae7155ddf720cb8e45c628409b4692bba  -

run_ledger

Value Meaning
complete the ledger reached run_finished
absent a directory assembled by hand

There is deliberately no incomplete. A run that stopped part way produced files that hash perfectly well and mean nothing, and bundle refuses to seal it rather than labelling it.

absent is legitimate. A hand-assembled bundle for re-analysis is a real thing to want, and the field says so. See The ledger.

bundle_format

Bumped when the layout changes in a way an older verify cannot read. Currently 1.

What each file is for

File Read it for
plan.lock.json what was run: image digests, seeds, declared egress, resource ceilings, access tier
PLAN.sha256 the plan hash on its own, checkable with shasum -c
environment.json what it ran on, and whether egress was enforced
items.jsonl the observations. Everything else is derived from this
estimates.json the rates, with method, parameters and citation beside each
scorecard.json the grades, the rules that decided them, and the ceilings that bit
ledger/RUNLOG.jsonl what happened, in order, as it happened
runs/ the per-unit files before merging, so the merge is checkable

Where to go next