transient-digest-to-ledger

Specimen 64 of 96 · Other active opt-ins / Privacy and cryptographic derivations

Severity: low
Confidence: low
Maturity: experimental
Selection: Opt-in
Policy intent: not required
Release: v0.1.1
Engine facts used: transient-data-origins state-writes completed-entries

Selection and scope#

Not selected by default. Select it with --detectors or the detectors list in nightshade.json. Either one replaces profile selection, so list every rule you want.

Shell

./.nightshade/node_modules/.bin/nightshade ./contracts --detectors transient-digest-to-ledger
./.nightshade/node_modules/.bin/nightshade detector show transient-digest-to-ledger

The first command runs only this rule; --detectors takes a comma-separated list. The second prints the rule's metadata from your installed version.

Severity is review priority. It does not express exploitability or impact. Confidence is detector metadata, not a probability. All built-in rules are experimental.

Compiler scope: the engine supports the pinned profiles 0.28.0, 0.29.0, 0.30.0, 0.31.1, 0.33.0-rc.2, 0.34.0, 0.35.0-rc.1 and 0.35.0, with ZKIR2 by default. Support for this rule can be narrower; the rule documentation below states any narrower scope.

Corpus checks#

Synthetic corpus checks for this rule in the 0.1.1 proof run. A check counts only with compiler acceptance and complete analysis.

Positive detected	Corrected quiet	Lookalike quiet	Other negative quiet	Incomplete
1/1	1/1	1/1	0/0	0

No deviations were recorded for this rule.

These are behavior checks on synthetic fixtures, not a precision or recall estimate. See evaluation.

Rule documentation#

From docs/detectors/transient-digest-to-ledger.md at v0.1.1.

Availability: opt-in, no policy required. Severity/confidence: low/high. Select with --detectors transient-digest-to-ledger.

The standard library documents that transientHash and transientCommit lack upgrade stability and should not derive state data. This rule reports a terminal modeled ledger operand constructed using either authenticated native primitive. It groups each primitive source site and entry, listing affected writes and invocations. It does not establish an actual upgrade failure, secrecy requirement, concrete feasibility or vulnerability.

Compact

export ledger fingerprint: Field;
export circuit register(value: Field): [] {
  fingerprint = disclose(transientHash<Field>(value));
}

A fingerprint that must be recomputed after a compiler/protocol upgrade needs a stable derivation. Use persistentHash or persistentCommit over stable inputs when that is the required lifecycle. Changing an existing representation requires an explicit migration. A persistent hash around a transient result still depends on the transient algorithm. Intentional version-bound state, ephemeral caches and compiler disclosure tests can match, so this compatibility review remains opt-in.

The origin annotation describes syntactic data derivation, independently of private inputs. It survives modeled arithmetic, casts, helpers, snapshots and aggregate construction; projecting another aggregate member does not inherit an unrelated origin. Ambient control guards and arbitrary witness callback arguments do not establish data derivation. Consistency-only assertions, return/event-only outputs, namesake user functions, persistent-only derivations and definite final overwrites stay quiet. Origins do not establish value equality or live storage.

Exact bounded observations are isolated from baseline analysis. Native hashes and commitments, ordinary storage operands and Map keys/values are supported. The observer disables compressed folds/hash choices and retains the original 40,000-step/256-path/50,000-value limits. Origins are limited to128 source sites; the consumer shares200,000 applicability/lifetime/grouping checks. May-value origins, wildcard/may-alias or partial overwrites, unsupported List/Merkle payload lifetimes and exhaustion produce explicit rule/entry-scoped incomplete diagnostics. Set removal after a transient-derived insertion is unavailable: whole-Set writes do not expose enough element lifetime evidence. A final exact reset can discharge an earlier uncertain operand. Other rules and baseline completion remain separate. This does not track arbitrary TypeScript witness code or cross-entry upgrades.

Compiler acceptance and analyzer behavior are validated separately. The rule does not establish application recall or an upstream defect.

Suppress a match#

If a match is intentional, suppress it on the line before with the exact rule ID and a reason of at least eight characters: