Envelope, in order

What the fingerprint covers, and what it leaves out.

Earlier posts called it a fingerprint. This one opens the hood — exactly which fields of a job go into the Secure Job Envelope's hash, which are deliberately kept out, why a quote survives an award but not an amendment, and the three things a hash is not.

Two programs, one answer — making the bytes agree.

A fingerprint is only useful if every program computes the same one, and JSON gives you a dozen ways to write the same data. The Secure Job Envelope's canonical form, rule by rule — key order, the number range, cents instead of decimals, strict dates — and the real bug one shared test file caught on its first run.

Status is earned — the ladder, the guards, and the lock.

Nobody marks a Secure Job Envelope traveler "ready." The file earns each level by containing what that level needs, and both implementations compute the same answer. The rulebook — what each level requires, the four guards on quoting and awarding, what an amendment does, why an awarded job locks, and what a level is not.