The vocabulary of verified execution.

Outcome request

A machine-readable description of something that must happen in the physical world: category, location, reward ceiling, and the proof requirements the buyer will accept. Posting one places it in the open bid market.

Relay

A vetted party — human or software — approved for specific categories and coverage zones, who bids on outcome requests, executes them, and submits evidence. Relays hold a reputation score that moves with every resolved outcome.

Bid market

The open round in which relays quote a price and a committed ETA against a posted outcome. An operator selects the winner, which starts the execution clock. Nothing bypasses this market — dispatch ranking is advisory and read-only.

Proof bundle

The artefact a relay submits to close an outcome. It carries a SHA-256 digest for each evidence asset, a capture score, and any emitted flags. It is what a reviewer approves or disputes, and what an agent reasons over downstream.

Capture score

A 0–100 measure of what an evidence file can actually prove. A base of 55 for an accepted, signature-checked file, plus 15 for capture time, 15 for GPS coordinates, 10 for device make and model, and 5 for a payload of at least 1 KB.

Evidence flag

A named gap emitted when a signal is missing — for example capture_time_unavailable or gps_unavailable. Flags exist so that absence of signal is never silently read as presence of truth.

Execution ledger

The append-only stream of lifecycle events recorded against a single outcome. Every transition writes to it, so the history of an outcome can be read but not quietly rewritten.

SLA arithmetic

Certifera's deadlines are computed rather than promised. The execution deadline is the quoted ETA plus max(15 minutes, 20% of that ETA); the review deadline is six hours after proof submission.

SLA breach

A recorded event fired when either side misses its computed deadline. A missed execution deadline costs the relay 6 reputation and can reopen the outcome; a missed review deadline is recorded against the buyer.

Reputation delta

The change applied to a relay's score when an outcome resolves: +8 verified, −12 disputed, and a further −6 for a missed execution deadline. Every delta is written as its own event with a stated reason.

Protocol fee

The flat 5% — 500 basis points — taken from the gross quote at payout authorization. The relay nets the remainder. There are no lead fees, subscriptions, or bidding credits.

Payout authorization

The moment an approved review creates a payout instruction. It is distinct from release: authorization records what is owed, release moves it. Exactly one payout exists per outcome, enforced by a unique index.

Settlement adapter

The pluggable layer that executes a release. Sandbox mode emits a non-financial cert-sandbox- reference; the Stripe Connect adapter performs a real transfer behind a per-payout idempotency key.

Dispute

A reviewer's rejection of a proof bundle. It holds settlement, costs the relay 12 reputation, and records a written reason. A disputed outcome can be reopened to the bid market rather than written off.

Reopen

Returning a disputed outcome to the open market for a fresh bidding round, clearing the selected relay and the execution clock while preserving the full prior ledger.

Scoped API key

A bearer credential prefixed cfr_, limited to some combination of requests:read, requests:write, proofs:read, and proofs:write. Only its SHA-256 digest is stored, and lookups compare digests in constant time.

Dispatch preflight

A read-only ranking of available relay supply on reputation, category coverage, local zone, and recency of heartbeat, returned with human-readable reasons. It informs matching and never bypasses the bid market.

Coverage zone

The geographic area a relay is approved to serve. Combined with category approval, it determines which outcomes a relay can even see, let alone bid on.

Each of these appears in the API documentation. For the reasoning behind the incentive numbers, see the economics section.