Hive research paper

From Sandbox Claims to Checkable Boundary Relations

Seven receipts for policy, observation, refusal, schedule, and replay

Published
September 3, 2026
Scope
7 typed receipt profiles
Format
HTML, Markdown, JSON index
Quick answer. A boundary receipt should answer one small question at a time. Was this observed process inside the declared sandbox policy? Did this supplied transfer match the egress rule? Was a refusal followed by the expected observation? It should not claim universal visibility.

The problem

The word sandbox often hides several different controls. Process boundaries, network egress, refusal handling, thresholds, time schedules, and forensic replay are separate relations. A single safe or unsafe label collapses those relations and makes verification weak.

The seven USAP profiles keep those questions separate. Each profile has its own required fields, element derivation, outcome rule, gate order, and claim boundary. Shared code supplies deterministic primitives only.

Primitive map

ReceiptBound inputsDerived relationClaim boundary
usap.pbsRuntime observation and declared sandbox policyObserved runtime fits the supplied policyComplete process monitoring
usap.perimeterOne supplied boundary attempt and declared ruleAttempt is classified against that ruleFirst packet detection
usap.egressSupplied transfer and precommitted egress policyTransfer matches the allowed relationUniversal network visibility
usap.refusalDecision and post decision observationObserved behavior follows the refusal relationIntent or enforcement outside the supplied record
usap.howlerSignal, threshold, and required dispositionThreshold and disposition relations recomputeClassifier correctness
usap.diurnalEvent time and declared scheduleApplied threshold matches the scheduleClock integrity outside the receipt
usap.forensicPrecommitted method and chained replay stepsReplay output equals the committed expectationTruth of missing evidence

Verifier gates

The verifier rebuilds derived values. It does not trust a caller supplied outcome, count, root, total, or relation.

  • POLICY_PRECOMMITMENT
  • OBSERVATION_ORDER
  • RELATION_DERIVATION
  • ELEMENT_DERIVATION
  • OUTCOME_DERIVATION

Failure cases

Policy swap

A later policy cannot replace the committed policy without changing its digest.

Observation rewrite

The verifier rebuilds the typed relation from supplied observations.

Threshold inflation

The applied threshold must match the declared schedule or rule.

False favorable outcome

The verifier derives the outcome and rejects a caller supplied result.

Broken replay chain

Each forensic step must link to the prior committed state.

Claim boundary

  • No receipt claims complete monitoring.
  • No profile claims that a sandbox enforced every possible path.
  • A perimeter receipt covers one supplied attempt, not the first packet on a network.
  • A forensic replay cannot recover evidence that was never observed.

Standards context

These sources describe related transparency, authorization, or evidence patterns. They do not endorse Hive or establish that a Hive receipt was present in any third party system.

Related research