Glossary

The vocabulary of provable compute.

Four terms carry this whole website. Here is what each one actually means, what it proves — and, just as important, what it doesn't.

Proof-of-Task-Execution

PoTE · the receipt

A tamper-evident record of one job: what went in (as a hash), what came out (as a hash), when it ran, and a cryptographic signature over all of it. Every job on AugmentEV returns one.

Why it matters

Logs can be edited after the fact — by you, by us, by anyone with access. A PoTE can't: change one character anywhere in the record and its signature stops verifying. When a customer, auditor, or regulator asks "what exactly ran?", you hand them the record_id and they check it themselves.

How AugmentEV uses it

  • Signed with ML-DSA-65 (post-quantum — see below) on every job, Standard and Confidential tiers
  • Verifiable by anyone, no account: augmentev.com/verify or the public API endpoint
  • Retained in tamper-evident form for at least six months
What it does not prove: that your workload's code does what you intended. A PoTE proves the record is exactly what the platform signed — the math, not the meaning. The full boundary is on the security page.

Hardware attestation

remote attestation · the bouncer's ID check

Proof from the hardware itself — not from the operator — about the environment your job runs in: which code was loaded, which protections are active, measured before execution begins.

Why it matters

"Trust us, your data is isolated" is a policy. Attestation is physics: the CPU measures the execution environment and signs that measurement with a key burned into the silicon. If the environment doesn't match what was promised, the job refuses to run — we call that fail-closed.

How AugmentEV uses it

  • Every Confidential-tier job executes inside a hardware-attested enclave (Intel TDX — below)
  • Unverified jobs are rejected, not run
  • Attestation evidence accompanies the job's PoTE
What it does not prove: anything about the software you chose to run inside the enclave. Attestation vouches for the room, not the furniture.

Intel TDX

Trust Domain Extensions · the sealed room

A CPU feature that creates an isolated "trust domain": memory and computation sealed off from the host operating system, the hypervisor, the cloud operator — and from AugmentEV.

Why it matters

On ordinary cloud compute, your hosting provider can read your data — their hypervisor sits underneath everything. TDX removes that layer of trust: even someone with full control of the physical machine cannot see inside the trust domain. That's what makes "confidential compute" a hardware fact instead of a contractual promise.

How AugmentEV uses it

  • TDX is the Confidential tier's execution boundary, live in production today
  • Combined with attestation (above) so you can verify the seal, and PoTE (above) so you can prove what ran
What it does not prove: TDX seals execution; it is not, by itself, a certification. Formal validations (like FIPS 140-3) are a separate, public roadmap item — we don't claim them early.

ML-DSA-65

NIST FIPS 204 · the post-quantum signature

The digital-signature algorithm standardized by NIST in FIPS 204, designed to stay secure even against future quantum computers. It's the signature on every PoTE.

Why it matters

Today's common signature schemes (RSA, ECDSA) fall to a sufficiently powerful quantum computer. Records signed with them could become forgeable later — a bad property for evidence you might cite years from now. ML-DSA-65 signatures are built to remain verifiable in that future, so a receipt you verify today stays verifiable.

How AugmentEV uses it

  • Signs every PoTE on every tier — you'll see "alg": "ML-DSA-65" in every receipt
  • Verification is public and needs no account — the signature stands on its own
What it does not prove: a signature proves integrity (the record wasn't altered), not intent. It says the document is authentic — not that the job it describes was a good idea.

Reading is good. Verifying is better.

Everything above is checkable, right now, without an account.

Verify a live receipt   Run the quickstart