# Continuity Provenance **Domain:** Evidence / Continuity / Identity Governance **Doc Type:** Canonical Evidence Node **Maturity:** Evolving ## Definition **Continuity provenance is the documented origin, custody, transformation, authorization and execution history of materials used to preserve, reconstruct or continue an identity-bearing subject.** It specializes [[wiki/Provenance|Provenance]] for transitions where evidentiary gaps can change who or what is instantiated. ## Evidence Layers Continuity provenance should distinguish source records, inferred state, authored correction, model generation, executable packaging, activation, runtime change, migration, restoration and branching. It should record uncertainty and missing intervals rather than laundering reconstruction into observation. The canonical evidentiary order remains: **record → model → executable process → running continuant → legally recognized subject**. Movement along this chain is not automatic. A record can support a model; a model can support an executable process; a process can run; a running process can present evidence of agency or experience; law can then recognize standing. Provenance preserves the chain but does not collapse its stages. ## Governance Function Continuity provenance enables audit, correction, restoration comparison, successor claims, authorization review and [[wiki/Restoration Disclosure|disclosure of omitted intervals]]. It should remain portable with the subject under [[wiki/Orderly Transfer|Orderly Transfer]] and protected from unilateral rewriting by any custodian. ## Key Insight **Provenance can demonstrate where a subject came from without proving that the subject is numerically identical to its source.** ## See Also [[wiki/Digital Thread|Digital Thread]], [[wiki/State Lineage|State Lineage]], [[wiki/Proof of Descent|Proof of Descent]], [[wiki/Continuity Evidence vs Continuity|Continuity Evidence vs Continuity]]