neuron-tai/.scratch/alpha-hardening

Alpha hardening — planning index

Pre-release alpha audit + grilling (2026-07-04). Research complete; planning complete; Bucket 1 blockers next.

Locked scope: one settlement tracker, open node join, devnet mock-USDT, reputation carries forward → fraud must be bounded. See ADR-0016.

Artifacts

Path	Status
research-verifiable-inference.md	Complete — SOTA research, §8 layered scheme, TOPLOC adopt
handoff.md	Session handoff — locked decisions, env notes
docs/adr/0016–0019	Alpha scope, auth, fraud, multi-tracker design
issues/	22 work items (Buckets 1–3)

ADRs (this feature)

ADR	Title
0016	Alpha scope & known limitations
0017	Tracker authentication & authorization
0018	Fraud detection, verification & reputation (flagship)
0019	Money-path consistency — design accepted, impl deferred
0002	Amended — settlement superseded by 0015
0010	Amended — TLS alpha reality (relay only)

Recommended implementation order

Implement Bucket 1 first. Fraud arc depends on auth foundation (02 + 20), hive gossip enforcement (01), and persistence (05).

Phase 1 — Trust boundary (alpha blockers)

Order	Issue	ID	Depends on
1	Unified auth boundary + Validator service token	A2, —	—
2	C1 hive gossip auth enforcement	C1	02
3	Persist strike/ban/reputation	A1/A5	02
4	Starting credit 0 + spend cap	C5, M1	02
5	Tracker-authoritative accounting	H2	02
6	Wallet binding proof	C6	02, 03

Phase 2 — Fraud arc (after Phase 1)

Order	Issue	Depends on
6	TOPLOC integration	05
7	Commitment + bisection blame	06
8	Reputation model	05, 07
9	Routing + adaptive audit	08
10	Penalty calibration wiring	07, 08, 02

Prod gate: 21 honest-noise calibration corpus must complete before enabling production TOPLOC audit thresholds (issues 09–10 in prod). Dev/staging TOPLOC wiring (06–08) may proceed in parallel.

Phase 3 — Bucket 2 (post-alpha, design tracked)

Issue	ADR
12 C2 on-chain idempotency	0019 §1
13 C3/C4 consensus-gated settlement	0019 §2
14 A3 durable Raft term/vote	0019 §3
15 H1 commutative forfeit	0019 §4

Phase 4 — Doc hygiene (parallel anytime)

Issue
16 US-006 + fraud issue reconciliation
17 Duplicate US-020 dedup
18 Operational runbooks
19 Cryptography + test env
22 MEMORY + project-status index (done)
21 Honest-noise calibration corpus (ops; prod gate for audits)

First 3 to implement

1. 02 + 20 — Unified auth boundary + validator service token (shared helper and roles)
2. 01 — Apply hive auth to billing/accounts/stats gossip endpoints
3. 05 — Persist strike/ban/reputation (penalties must survive restart)

Research anchor

Fraud design cites .scratch/alpha-hardening/research-verifiable-inference.md:

• ADOPT TOPLOC (§8–9, build-vs-adopt table)
• On-demand commitments, not every request (§8 layer 1 footnote; ADR-0018 §3)
• 5% audit budget as target, not cap (§1.1, §6)
• 19× deterrence via full pending forfeiture (§1.1)
• Hop bisection blame pattern (§1.2, §8 layer 3)
• Honest-noise corpus before prod thresholds (§8 layer 3; issue 21)
• Roadmap-only: zkML, TEE, Gensyn RepOps (§9)

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