What is Provenance?
Provenance — The record of where data, a model, or a decision came from and how it has changed — attribution extended across time.
Provenance answers not just where did this come from but what has happened to it since. For an autonomous system, it is the difference between a result you can defend and one you can only assert. It builds directly on attribution and underpins every downstream trust and compliance claim.
Where provenance sits in the stack
In the four-layer architecture of the agentic web, provenance is a Substrate (L1) concept — it the cited foundation every layer grounds in. See the thesis for how the layers compound.
Provenance in the portfolio
93 positions in the Semantic Substrate portfolio carry the Provenance primitive — 37 available individually, 56 held as a coordinated set. Explore the Provenance cluster →
Quick answers
- What is Provenance in agentic systems?
- The record of where data, a model, or a decision came from and how it has changed — attribution extended across time.
- Where does Provenance sit in the agentic stack?
- Provenance sits at the Substrate (L1) layer — it the cited foundation every layer grounds in.
- How many Provenance domain positions exist in the Semantic Substrate portfolio?
- 93 positions carry the Provenance primitive — 37 available individually, the rest held as a coordinated set.