Tree nodes and bulk Merkle summaries

Tree nodes: bulk Merkle summaries vs itemized chain seals

The main Verae chain stores hash + time + block + certificate. A Zap that timestamps one document writes that document’s SHA-256 as its own seal.

A batch of many documents is different: middleware builds a Merkle tree of the item hashes, seals only the Merkle root on the chain, and writes each leaf proof to external tree-node NATS archives. A later lookup of a member hash will miss on the central chain unless the Zap also queries tree nodes.

Zapier  HTTPS  zappier-edge  HTTPS  middleware
                                      |
                         Merkle root  |  verae.archive.put kind=tree
                         (chain seal) |  (leaf proof, sharded)
                                      v
                               tree-node-east/west/central
                               bloom miss = silence
                                      ^
              hash lookup includeTree |  verae.archive.query
                                      |  kinds=["tree"]
                              aggregator merges proof + root seal
Search Hits
Find Timestamp by SHA256 Hash was registered as its own chain seal
Find Hash (tree nodes + central chain) Chain first, then includeTree=true broadcast

Receipt shape for a bulk leaf

{
  "sha256": "<leaf>",
  "exists": true,
  "itemizedOnMainChain": false,
  "merkleRoot": "<root sealed on chain>",
  "proofOk": true,
  "receipts": [
    { "kind": "seal", "of": "merkleRoot", "sha256": "<root>", "certificate": "…" },
    { "kind": "tree-leaf", "archiveId": "tree-node-east", "proof": […], "leafIndex": 1 }
  ]
}

Validate this path in the simulator (packages/verae-zapier-simulator) before pushing the Zapier app.