FIELD NOTE 03

Receipts are part of control

Decision evidence should be produced during execution—not reconstructed after it.

Published May 30, 2026

Evidence at decision time

Post-hoc logs often omit the policy version or normalized intent that actually governed a payment. A decision receipt records those inputs when they are still authoritative.

Useful, not exhaustive

Receipts should contain identifiers, hashes, checks, timestamps, and outcomes while excluding credentials and unnecessary sensitive metadata.

Verification matters

Operators can compare a receipt with the signed envelope and settlement reference to verify that intent, authorization, and consequence remained bound together.