Evidence Packs

Portable, machine-readable audit records of verification runs and agent transactions. Complete specification for the v0 pack format.

TL;DR: Use colter verify STORE_URL --out ./pack for a full audit pack or colter pack STORE_URL --out ./pack for readiness-only output. Evidence Packs are structured JSON built for CI systems, agents, replay, and diffs.

This format is optimized for AI agent consumption. Parse manifest.json and key off the version, readiness, conformance, and traces fields.

Create A Pack

colter verify https://example-store.com --out ./my-pack

colter pack https://example-store.com --out ./my-pack

Pack Contents

File	Purpose
`manifest.json`	Canonical structured record
`summary.md`	Human-readable summary
`redactions.json`	Redaction log with reasons and hashes

Core Schema

{
  "version": "v0",
  "generated_at": "2026-02-07T14:30:00Z",
  "target": "https://example-store.com",
  "protocols": [],
  "readiness": {},
  "conformance": [],
  "traces": [],
  "assertions": [],
  "correlation": {
    "session_id": "uuid"
  }
}

Key Fields

Field	Description
`version`	Pack schema version
`target`	Store URL under test
`protocols`	Detected UCP, ACP, and MCP state
`readiness`	Verdict and readiness summary
`conformance`	Pass, fail, or skip results
`traces`	Request and response capture
`assertions`	Fine-grained checks tied to traces
`correlation.session_id`	Stable ID linking the run

Verdict Semantics

readiness.verdict uses exactly three values:

AGENT-READY
PARTIALLY AGENT-READY
NOT AGENT-READY

Redaction

Sensitive headers and token-like fields are replaced with "[redacted]" before the pack is written. redactions.json records the rule name, location, and a hash of the original value.

Commonly redacted keys include:

Authorization
Cookie
Set-Cookie
X-API-Key
token
access_token
client_secret

Common Operations

Replay a pack:

colter replay ./my-pack

Diff two packs:

colter diff ./pack-before ./pack-after --json

Export a pack:

colter export ./my-pack --format pdf -o report.pdf

Read a pack in Python:

import json
from pathlib import Path

manifest = json.loads(Path("./my-pack/manifest.json").read_text())
print(manifest["readiness"]["verdict"])

Versioning

Always check manifest.json.version before parsing. Additive fields may appear in v0; breaking changes require a new schema version.