HCP
Hash Commitment Protocol
Status:
Candidate Governance Protocol (Version 1.0)
Abstract:
The Hash Commitment Protocol (HCP) provides a simple governance procedure for demonstrating that independently produced constitutional recoveries were completed prior to comparison.
The protocol does not validate the correctness of either recovery.
Instead, it preserves provenance by allowing each participant to demonstrate that their recovered document remained unchanged between completion and exchange.
HCP therefore supports reproducibility while avoiding inadvertent convergence during collaborative constitutional recovery.
Purpose
Independent constitutional recovery seeks to determine whether a framework can be reconstructed from its declared corpus without reliance upon private explanation or external interpretation.
If one participant reads another participant's recovery before completing their own, the independence of the exercise is no longer recoverable.
The purpose of HCP is therefore not secrecy.
Its purpose is to preserve the provenance of independent constitutional recovery.
Scope
The protocol applies to constitutional recovery exercises including, but not limited to:
Constitutional Onboarding Records (COR)
Constitutional reviews
Independent framework recovery
Constitutional reproducibility studies
It may also be applied to other governance exercises where independent prior completion is desirable.
Principle
Each participant completes their constitutional recovery independently.
Before any recovery document is exchanged, each participant computes a SHA-256 cryptographic hash of the completed document.
Only the hash values are exchanged initially.
The recovery documents themselves remain private.
Once all participants have exchanged hashes, the completed documents are exchanged.
Each participant may then independently verify that the received document produces the previously exchanged hash.
This demonstrates that the exchanged document existed in its completed form prior to comparison.
Constitutional role
HCP preserves provenance.
It does not validate correctness.
It does not imply agreement.
It does not evaluate scientific merit.
Its constitutional purpose is solely to preserve the independence of constitutional recovery prior to author review.
Procedure
Stage 1
The Declared Constitutional Corpus (DCC) is established.
Stage 2
Each participant independently performs constitutional recovery using only the declared corpus.
No discussion of the recovery occurs during this stage.
Stage 3
Each participant finalises their recovery document.
No further changes are made after commitment.
Stage 4
Each participant computes a SHA-256 cryptographic hash of the completed document.
Example (macOS / Linux):
shasum -a 256 filename.pdfStage 5
Only the resulting hash values are exchanged.
The recovery documents remain private.
Stage 6
After all participants have exchanged hashes, the recovery documents themselves are exchanged.
Stage 7
Each participant verifies that the received document produces the previously exchanged hash.
Stage 8
Author review and constitutional comparison may now begin.
Interpretation
Matching hashes demonstrate only that the exchanged document has not changed since commitment.
They do not demonstrate:
correctness;
completeness;
constitutional adequacy;
scientific validity.
Those questions remain matters for constitutional review.
Limitations
The protocol does not prevent participants from sharing hidden assumptions before recovery begins.
It therefore cannot guarantee complete epistemic independence.
Instead, it preserves documentary provenance from the moment of commitment onward.
Relationship to Constitutional Onboarding
HCP operates after the Declared Constitutional Corpus has been established and before author review begins.
The protocol therefore occupies the following position within Constitutional Onboarding:
Declared Constitutional Corpus (DCC)
↓
Independent Constitutional Recovery
↓
Hash Commitment (HCP)
↓
Document Exchange
↓
Author Review
↓
Repository Review
↓
Constitutional Onboarding Record (COR)
↓
Framework Admissibility History (FAH)Governance Status
The Hash Commitment Protocol governs documentary provenance during independent constitutional recovery.
It is not itself a constitutional object, nor does it alter the constitutional content of any recovered framework.
Its function is procedural: to preserve the recoverability of independent constitutional reconstruction.
