One format, one toolkit, one steward.
ActionReceipt is the file format. Bulla is the developer product. Glyph Standard maintains the specification and tests.
The names describe different layers, not competing products. Developers install Bulla. Applications exchange ActionReceipt files. Glyph Standard publishes the format and test suite. Res Agentica is where experimental extensions are researched before any product claim is made.
A party can implement the ActionReceipt format without Bulla, check it without this website, and store records without a Glyph Standard account.
Witnessing is a separate role
Glyph Standard currently operates one composition-deed registry. It is not an ActionReceipt witness. No separately operated witness has yet demonstrated that role, so the site does not describe the current system as independently witnessed.
The witnessing instrument reports that current implementation and the evidence still missing for an external operation claim.
What this check cannot tell you
An operated composition-deed log is not independent ActionReceipt witness plurality; the current independent-witness count is zero.
Open format and local software
Bulla is licensed under Apache-2.0 outright, since version 0.42.0. There is no usage tier or commercial gate on the receipt format or local verifier. A counterparty can keep the file and checker under its own retention policy.
What this check cannot tell you
An open format and license permit independent exit; they do not themselves create an independent implementation, witness, or operator.
Research discipline
The current research ledger separates lifecycle from epistemic status. Formally verified, conjectural, superseded, and falsified work are not interchangeable labels. The public research page is generated from that ledger and promotes only the current priority program; withdrawn work remains available as an archive with its correction attached.
What this check cannot tell you
Formal verification applies to the stated mathematical object; empirical identification, conjecture, correction, and product mechanism remain separately labelled.
The name and lineage
A bulla was the sealed clay envelope of Mesopotamian commerce: tokens inside recorded a transaction, impressions outside declared it, and any counterparty could break the seal and recount. It is the oldest instrument for making a claim checkable by a stranger — a receipt older than writing.
Bulla applies the same construction to autonomous action. The retained file keeps the transaction fields needed for later inspection after the agent or runtime is unavailable.
The Sa-Ra mark is adapted from the CC BY-SA 4.0 vector by Medium69, with requested credit to William Crochot. See the asset notice.
- 01SURFACE ACCOUNT · WEDGE IMPRESSIONS
- 02SEAL IMPRESSION · ATTRIBUTABLE PARTY
- 03SEALED COUNTERS · INTERIOR
Magnified impressions · reconstruction
attested numerals · N14 = ten · N01 = onecalibrated scale · 2 cm
- action
- payments.charge
- principal · policy
- did:key:zSpecVector · policy://payments@sha256:aa
- scope
- payments.charge amount<=100000
- evidence grounding
- self_asserted
- content
- sha256:781d0999c89…f92413
- recompute the verdict
- event
- sha256:8528c4226d1…304fc9
- which occurrence
- attestation
- sha256:4393cdcadb6…c90b37
- who vouched
- log_leaf
- sha256:2dac1d94c26…66ea30
- where logged
Functional correspondence
The record outlives the actor. It always has.
Historical note
Early Mesopotamian writing was predominantly administrative and included receipts, bills, transfers, and inventories. Clay counters and bullae belong to the preceding account-keeping sequence. This specimen combines documented features into a conceptual reconstruction; it is not a translation of one excavated object or a claim of direct technological lineage. Sources: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative.
What this check cannot tell you
The headline compresses the administrative origin of Mesopotamian writing into a category statement. The Late Uruk specimen is a sourced conceptual reconstruction and the correspondence is functional, not a literal translation, direct technological lineage, or origin claim for glyphic writing; numeral values follow published sign lists, and no commodity readings or totals are asserted.