SHA-256 Cryptographic Seals for AI Decisions
What is SHA-256?
SHA-256 (Secure Hash Algorithm 256-bit) is a cryptographic hash function that produces a unique 256-bit (32-byte) fingerprint for any input data. It has three critical properties:
1. **Deterministic**: The same input always produces the same hash 2. **Collision-resistant**: It's computationally infeasible to find two inputs with the same hash 3. **Avalanche effect**: A single character change produces a completely different hash
Why SHA-256 for AI Decision Records?
When an AI agent makes a decision, the complete decision context - intent signals, precedent links, policy checks, and final rationale - is serialized and hashed with SHA-256.
This creates a tamper-evident seal: if any character in the decision record is altered after the fact, the hash will no longer match, immediately revealing the integrity violation.
The Seal Process
1. Capture: Siphon harvests intent from raw streams 2. Contextualize: Wisdom Graph adds precedent links 3. Commit: Thread is written to the Loom 4. Seal: SHA-256 hash anchors the "why"
Verification and Proof of Authority
At audit time, the stored decision record is re-hashed and compared against the original seal. A match proves the record is unaltered. A mismatch proves tampering.
This provides what we call a "Certificate of Authority" - cryptographic proof that an autonomous decision was made with the recorded context and has not been modified since.