Network Working Group A. Ferro Internet-Draft ApertoMemory Intended status: Experimental I. Schrock Expires: 4 February 2027 EMILIA Protocol, Inc. 3 August 2026 Signed Memory Projection Records for Verifiable AI Context Delivery draft-ferro-schrock-memory-projection-record-01 Abstract Encrypted and signed memory objects can establish source integrity, authorship, and read-time trust without establishing which exact bytes a memory adapter selected and delivered to a downstream AI system. This document specifies a provider-neutral signed Memory Projection Record. The record commits to the recall request and selection policy, the read-time keyring snapshot, the ordered source objects and exact context fragments delivered, the complete projection bytes, and summarized exclusions. It deliberately does not claim that a model received, used, or weighted the projection, that an action was authorized, or that an outcome occurred. ApertoMemory is one source profile; other memory formats can use the same projection boundary. Status of This Memo This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet- Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." This Internet-Draft will expire on 4 February 2027. Copyright Notice Copyright (c) 2026 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 1] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/ license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document. Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect to this document. Code Components extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License. Table of Contents 1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 1.1. Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Scope and Nonclaims . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Memory Projection Record . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4.1. Identity and Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 4.2. Selection Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4.3. Delivered Entries and Projection Bytes . . . . . . . . . 6 4.4. Exclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5. ApertoMemory Source Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5.1. Trust Snapshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5.2. Context Fragment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6. Canonicalization and Signature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 7. Producer Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 8. Verifier Algorithm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 9. Composition with Downstream Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 10. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 11. Privacy Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 12. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 13. Implementation Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 14. Changes Since -00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 15. Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 16. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 17. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 1. Introduction A memory-object format and a context-delivery record answer different questions. A memory-object format can prove that an object verified under a key accepted at read time. It does not, by itself, identify the set, order, framing, or exact bytes selected for a particular AI request. Conversely, a projection record cannot repair invalid source provenance. It can only preserve the source decision and bind it to the bytes emitted by a named adapter. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 2] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 This document defines the join between those layers. A projection producer signs one closed record after the projection bytes and their ordered fragments are finalized. A verifier recomputes the source- object, fragment, and complete-projection commitments and verifies the adapter signature under a relying-party-pinned key. The resulting fact is narrow: the producer attests that it emitted the committed projection under the committed selection context. The source memory profile remains authoritative for its own object, cryptographic, trust, authorship, and custody semantics. In particular, ApertoMemory [I-D.ferro-apertomemory] remains authoritative for sealed Memory Objects and its read-time trust derivation. This document does not redefine those semantics. It defines a joint, provider-neutral artifact above that boundary. 1.1. Requirements Language The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in BCP 14 [RFC2119] [RFC8174] when, and only when, they appear in all capitals, as shown here. 2. Scope and Nonclaims A conforming Memory Projection Record establishes all of the following: * the adapter identity and pinned signing key used to produce the record; * commitments to the recall request, selection policy, source- profile trust snapshot, and framing profile; * the ordered list of source objects selected, with the trust and authorship results supplied by the source profile; * the exact bytes of each framed context fragment and of the complete emitted projection; and * the number of objects excluded for each closed exclusion reason. A projection record does not establish transport receipt, insertion into a model context window, model use or weighting, action linkage, action authorization, execution, or outcome. A downstream system MAY bind the projection digest into a separate request, authorization, or outcome protocol. Such a binding is outside this document. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 3] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 3. Terminology Source profile The independently governed memory format and verification rules from which object identity, trust, authorship, and custody facts are derived. Projection producer The adapter that selects source objects, frames exact context fragments, constructs the complete projection, and signs the Memory Projection Record. Projection The exact byte string emitted by the producer for downstream context delivery. Context fragment The exact framed bytes contributed by one selected source object at one position in the projection. Trust snapshot A commitment to the source-profile trust state used when the selection decision was made. For ApertoMemory this is a read-time keyring snapshot, because trust is derived rather than stored in the object. b64u Unpadded base64url encoding as defined in Section 5 of [RFC4648]. 4. Memory Projection Record MEMORY-PROJECTION-RECORD-v1 is a closed I-JSON object [RFC7493]. The top-level members are shown below. Member order in a JSON serialization has no significance. Unknown members MUST be refused until a later version defines an extension mechanism. { "@version": "MEMORY-PROJECTION-RECORD-v1", "source_profile": "draft-ferro-apertomemory-02", "projection_id": "urn:memory-projection:example:1234", "created_at": "2026-07-29T17:00:01.000Z", "adapter": { "id": "urn:memory-adapter:example:1", "key_id": "adapter-key-2026-07" }, "selection_context": { "recall_request_digest": "sha256:...", "selection_policy_digest": "sha256:...", "trust_snapshot_digest": "sha256:...", "trust_evaluated_at": "2026-07-29T17:00:00.000Z", "context_frame_profile": "urn:apertomemory:context-frame:v0" }, "delivered": [ Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 4] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 { "position": 0, "object": { "format_version": 2, "sealed_object_digest": "sha256:..." }, "context_fragment_digest": "sha256:...", "derived_trust": "trusted", "authorship": "attested", "author_key_id_b64u": "0FMJy9O1Xzs", "custody_present": true } ], "exclusions": { "total": 2, "by_reason": { "authentication_failed": 1, "schema_invalid": 0, "policy_filtered": 0, "context_limit": 1 } }, "projection": { "encoding": "utf-8", "byte_length": 314, "digest": "sha256:..." }, "nonclaims": { "model_use": "NOT_ESTABLISHED", "action_linkage": "NOT_ESTABLISHED", "action_authorization": "NOT_ESTABLISHED", "execution_outcome": "NOT_ESTABLISHED" }, "proof": { "alg": "Ed25519", "key_id": "adapter-key-2026-07", "signature_b64u": "..." } } 4.1. Identity and Time @version MUST equal MEMORY-PROJECTION-RECORD-v1. projection_id MUST be a globally unique URI. created_at and trust_evaluated_at MUST be UTC timestamps conforming to [RFC3339]. adapter.id identifies the producer; adapter.key_id selects a key from relying-party policy. proof.key_id MUST equal adapter.key_id. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 5] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 The relying party MUST set a maximum acceptable interval between trust_evaluated_at, created_at, and its verification time. A valid signature does not make a stale trust decision current. 4.2. Selection Context recall_request_digest is SHA-256 over the exact request bytes under a profile that defines their serialization. selection_policy_digest is SHA-256 over the exact policy bytes that determined eligibility, filtering, ordering, and limits. trust_snapshot_digest is SHA-256 over the source-profile-defined trust snapshot. context_frame_profile names the deterministic transformation from one opened source object and its labels to one context fragment. The cleartext request, policy, and trust snapshot need not be carried in the record. A verifier that relies on any of them MUST possess the exact bytes and their applicable serialization profiles and MUST recompute the corresponding digest. 4.3. Delivered Entries and Projection Bytes delivered is an array in projection order. position MUST equal the zero-based array index and MUST NOT repeat. sealed_object_digest is SHA-256 over the exact complete source-object bytes as supplied, without parsing or reserialization. format_version is interpreted only by the named source profile. context_fragment_digest is SHA-256 over the exact bytes of the fragment emitted for that entry, including framing labels, separators, and line endings. The complete projection is the bytewise concatenation of those fragments in ascending position. projection.byte_length and projection.digest MUST equal the length and SHA-256 digest of that complete byte string. This version supports only UTF-8 projection bytes; projection.encoding MUST equal utf-8. derived_trust, authorship, author_key_id_b64u, and custody_present preserve the source-profile result used at selection time. They MUST NOT be recomputed under rules invented by the projection producer. For an ApertoMemory source, the source profile remains solely authoritative for those values. Unverified content MUST use authorship unknown and a null author key. Attested authorship requires custody_present true. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 6] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 4.4. Exclusions exclusions.total MUST equal the sum of the closed by_reason counters. authentication_failed counts objects refused by source authentication; schema_invalid counts source objects the source profile refuses; policy_filtered counts otherwise valid objects excluded by policy; and context_limit counts otherwise eligible objects omitted due to a projection limit. A producer MUST NOT map an unknown reason into a semantically different counter. This version does not disclose excluded object identifiers, reducing correlation and content-oracle risk. 5. ApertoMemory Source Profile This section defines the source-profile processing used when source_profile equals draft-ferro-apertomemory-02 and context_frame_profile equals urn:apertomemory:context-frame:v0. The source-native outputs remain governed by [I-D.ferro-apertomemory]. The projection producer MUST preserve those outputs and MUST NOT upgrade or reinterpret them. The embedded requirements below reproduce the ratified [AMEM-TRUST-SNAPSHOT-PROFILE] and [AMEM-CONTEXT-FRAME-PROFILE] profiles pinned at ApertoMemory commit 48be525. 5.1. Trust Snapshot The ApertoMemory trust snapshot MUST be encoded as deterministic CBOR using the preferred serialization rules in Section 4.2 of [RFC8949]. It is a two-member map. Integer key 1 maps to the vault owner's signing-key identifier as an eight-byte CBOR byte string. Integer key 2 maps to an array containing the accepted author key identifiers, each as an eight-byte CBOR byte string. Each key identifier is the first eight bytes of SHA-256 over the raw Ed25519 signing public key. The accepted-key array MUST represent the exact known_keys set at trust_evaluated_at: duplicate identifiers are removed and the remaining raw byte strings are sorted in ascending unsigned-byte order. The owner identifier is retained when it is also present in known_keys. Integer key 2 MUST be present even when the set is empty. A producer MUST NOT sort base64url or hexadecimal representations in place of the raw bytes. trust_snapshot_digest is the lowercase hexadecimal SHA-256 digest of those exact deterministic-CBOR bytes, prefixed by sha256:. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 7] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 single accepted key: a2014863c1e89c009c5ad7028148d05309cbd3b55f3b sha256:ad677e36d1ac311f758cefeb41069704d1bc995612db0bc1029e239ecfcc2b5d two accepted keys, raw-byte order: a201480102030405060708028248000000000000000148d000000000000000 sha256:a6cec9a790d68dda6df60477c802cd3738650cd8f1b38fcc21125de51762e231 empty accepted-key set: a2014863c1e89c009c5ad70280 sha256:eddde59fb79cca10fdadf0c5bfc7c3b7e466cab79dcb95a5c4ea165fc8eb5bf0 5.2. Context Fragment The producer obtains derived_trust, authorship, author key, custody state, and body bytes from the source-native open_sealed result. It MUST NOT reproduce ApertoMemory trust logic inside the projection adapter. The body is used as exact UTF-8 with no trimming, newline conversion, or Unicode normalization. The context fragment is the UTF-8 byte sequence produced by the following exact concatenation. Every shown line ending is one LF byte (0x0A), including the final line ending. "[ApertoMemory trust=" + trust + " authorship=" + authorship + " author_key=" + author_key + " custody=" + custody + "]\n" + body + "\n[/ApertoMemory]\n" trust is self, trusted, or unverified. authorship is signed, attested, or unknown. author_key is the unpadded base64url encoding of the native eight-byte author key identifier, or the literal none when the source result has no author. custody is the lowercase literal true or false. Fields and values MUST appear in the order shown. 6. Canonicalization and Signature Every member except proof is inside the signature boundary. The producer removes proof, canonicalizes the remaining object with JCS [RFC8785], prefixes the following UTF-8 domain string and one zero octet, and signs the resulting bytes with Ed25519 [RFC8032]: MEMORY-PROJECTION-RECORD-v1\0 || JCS(record without proof) Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 8] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 proof.alg MUST equal Ed25519. signature_b64u is the unpadded base64url encoding [RFC4648] of the 64-byte signature. The public key MUST come from relying-party policy or an authenticated key- distribution mechanism outside the record. A key carried with the record is not a trust anchor. 7. Producer Algorithm 1. Open and verify candidate objects using their native source profile. Record the trust snapshot and evaluation time. 2. Commit to the recall request and complete selection policy before selecting objects. 3. Apply authentication, schema, policy, ordering, and size rules. Count every excluded candidate under exactly one exclusion reason. 4. Construct each final context fragment, hash its exact bytes, and append its entry in order. After this step the fragments MUST NOT be mutated without rebuilding the record. 5. Concatenate the fragments, compute projection.byte_length and projection.digest, construct the nonclaims, and sign the closed record. 6. Return or make available the projection bytes and record as one logical result. A failure after signing but before downstream delivery MUST NOT be reported as proof that a model received the bytes. 8. Verifier Algorithm 1. Require the exact top-level and nested member sets defined by this version. Validate types, enumerations, timestamps, and digest syntax. 2. Resolve adapter.key_id under relying-party policy, verify that it is current for created_at, and verify the Ed25519 signature over the domain-separated JCS bytes. 3. Enforce freshness policy for created_at and trust_evaluated_at and reject a duplicate projection_id when policy requires single use. 4. If relying on the request, policy, or trust snapshot, recompute its digest under the named profile. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 9] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 5. Verify each exact source-object digest under its native source profile. Preserve, rather than reinterpret, the native trust, authorship, and custody result. 6. Require sequential positions. Recompute every fragment digest from the exact fragment bytes, concatenate those bytes in order, and verify the complete length and digest. 7. Verify that exclusions.total equals the sum of the closed reason counters and that all four nonclaims equal NOT_ESTABLISHED. A verifier MUST refuse mutation, omission, duplication, or reordering of a delivered entry; a fragment or projection mismatch; an unpinned, expired, or compromised adapter key; a stale trust evaluation; a count mismatch; an unknown field; an altered nonclaim; or an invalid signature. 9. Composition with Downstream Systems A downstream protocol may bind projection.digest and projection_id into a model invocation, action proposal, authorization, admission decision, execution receipt, or outcome record. That downstream protocol is authoritative for its own semantics. The Memory Projection Record MUST remain valid and useful without requiring any particular agent, authorization, or outcome framework. EMILIA Trusted Context, AEC, Gate, and Outcome Binding are one consumer profile. They may use the projection as one evidence leg and independently bind the actual action and consequence. They are not part of the neutral projection-record wire format and do not authorize changes to the source profile or projection record. 10. Security Considerations A signed projection can preserve poisoned content with high integrity. Producers MUST therefore apply the native source profile fail closed and MUST keep unverified content distinguishable from self or trusted content. The projection signature proves an adapter statement, not the correctness of a memory, trust policy, keyring, framing policy, or model behavior. Stable object identifiers and excluded-object lists create correlation and membership oracles. This version commits to exact source bytes and carries aggregate exclusion counts rather than cleartext source identifiers. Deployments SHOULD use pairwise adapter identifiers where appropriate and SHOULD minimize retention of request, policy, and projection material. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 10] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 Replay can cause an old but valid projection to be applied under a new request. Relying parties MUST enforce freshness and SHOULD register projection_id atomically when single use is required. A stale or revoked source keyring, adapter key, or policy MUST NOT be made current merely by replaying a valid historical signature. 11. Privacy Considerations Memory projections can contain highly sensitive personal facts and can reveal selection behavior even when source objects remain encrypted. Records SHOULD carry commitments rather than cleartext requests, policies, trust snapshots, or excluded identifiers. The projection bytes SHOULD be disclosed only to the intended downstream recipient. Logs SHOULD avoid storing raw projection or fragment bytes unless operationally required. 12. IANA Considerations This document has no IANA actions. 13. Implementation Status The Apache-2.0 implementation [AMEM-EMILIA-INTEROP] implements MEMORY-PROJECTION-RECORD-v1. It produces and verifies the closed neutral field set and v1 domain-separated Ed25519 signature, recomputes the exact recall-request, policy, trust-snapshot, source- object, fragment, and complete-projection commitments, preserves source-native trust results, and exercises positive and hostile mutation vectors. ApertoMemory and EMILIA first independently reproduced five native source-fact cases and matched their exact source-object digests and native trust, authorship, signer, author, and custody results. Separate producers then converged byte-for-byte on a frozen Projection v1 example. That exercise exposed the two underspecifications resolved in Section 5. ApertoMemory subsequently published the exact context-frame and trust-snapshot profiles at pinned commit 48be525, and EMILIA independently reproduced the three deterministic CBOR examples and both checked context-frame digests before adopting those bytes. This is bounded reciprocal evidence for the checked source facts, profile bytes, and Projection v1 cases. It is not blanket ApertoMemory conformance, does not establish that every hostile case has a second independent implementation, and establishes none of model receipt, model use, action linkage, action authorization, execution, or outcome. Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 11] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 14. Changes Since -00 This revision makes no change to the MEMORY-PROJECTION-RECORD-v1 wire field set or signature domain. It specifies the exact ApertoMemory deterministic-CBOR trust snapshot and context-frame bytes, updates the example to name that framing profile, and records the bounded reciprocal implementation evidence completed after -00. 15. Acknowledgments The authors thank Matteo Clementel for his review and contributions to the memory-projection boundary. 16. Normative References [RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997, . [RFC3339] Klyne, G. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet: Timestamps", RFC 3339, DOI 10.17487/RFC3339, July 2002, . [RFC4648] Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data Encodings", RFC 4648, DOI 10.17487/RFC4648, October 2006, . [RFC7493] Bray, T., Ed., "The I-JSON Message Format", RFC 7493, DOI 10.17487/RFC7493, March 2015, . [RFC8032] Josefsson, S. and I. Liusvaara, "Edwards-Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (EdDSA)", RFC 8032, DOI 10.17487/RFC8032, January 2017, . [RFC8174] Leiba, B., "Ambiguity of Uppercase vs Lowercase in RFC 2119 Key Words", BCP 14, RFC 8174, DOI 10.17487/RFC8174, May 2017, . [RFC8785] Rundgren, A., Jordan, B., and S. Erdtman, "JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS)", RFC 8785, DOI 10.17487/RFC8785, June 2020, . Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 12] Internet-Draft Memory Projection Records August 2026 [RFC8949] Bormann, C. and P. Hoffman, "Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR)", STD 94, RFC 8949, DOI 10.17487/RFC8949, December 2020, . 17. Informative References [AMEM-CONTEXT-FRAME-PROFILE] Ferro, A., "ApertoMemory Context Frame v0 Profile", 3 August 2026, . [AMEM-EMILIA-INTEROP] Schrock, I., "ApertoMemory / EMILIA Memory-to-Action Composition Profile", July 2026, . [AMEM-TRUST-SNAPSHOT-PROFILE] Ferro, A., "ApertoMemory Trust Snapshot v0 Profile", 3 August 2026, . [I-D.ferro-apertomemory] Ferro, A., "The ApertoMemory Format: Portable, Client- Side-Encrypted AI Memory", Work in Progress, Internet- Draft, draft-ferro-apertomemory-02, 22 July 2026, . Authors' Addresses Andrea Ferro ApertoMemory Email: irn@irn3.com Iman Schrock EMILIA Protocol, Inc. United States of America Email: team@emiliaprotocol.ai Ferro & Schrock Expires 4 February 2027 [Page 13]