PQ-SmSH · Depth-bound inference · Patent Pending

The buyer signs the ceiling. The provider counter-attests the path.

PQ-SmSH turns "everything is depth — depth is everything" into a cryptographic contract. You commit a max depth band, a max token count, and an allowed tool set, signed with ML-DSA-65. The provider returns a counter-attestation of the actual path taken, also ML-DSA-65 signed. Over-band declarations are refused at the server. Both receipts verify offline. Patent Pending · Filed 2026-05-08

Five depth bands. Five price multipliers.

Base price is $0.0030 per 1,000 tokens. The band multiplies it. A buyer asking for D0 retrieval pays 0.05x. A buyer authorizing D4 frontier pays 10x. The provider cannot silently take the deeper, more expensive path — the server checks the declared band against the buyer's signed ceiling and refuses to attest if it exceeds.

D0 · retrieval
Retrieval
0.05x
0 tokens out
No tools
No multistep
D1 · shallow
Shallow
0.20x
≤ 512 tokens
No tools
No multistep
D2 · standard
Standard
1.00x
≤ 4,096 tokens
Basic tools
No multistep
D3 · deep
Deep
3.00x
≤ 32,768 tokens
Full tools
Multistep
D4 · frontier
Frontier
10.0x
Unbounded
Frontier model
Multistep

Live demo. LIVE

Pick a buyer ceiling. Pick what the provider actually did. The page calls the live endpoints — bind, attest, verify — and shows you the hybrid Ed25519 + ML-DSA-65 receipt. Try a deeper provider band than the buyer signed for and watch the server refuse.

What the server refuses to sign.

The attest endpoint runs five checks before producing a counter-signature. Any single failure returns HTTP 409 with the violation list. No partial signature, no co-sign, no audit trail of a fake compliance event.

Five ceiling checks

  • Actual depth band ≤ bound depth band
  • Tokens out ≤ band cap (or buyer's explicit cap)
  • If band forbids tools, tools_invoked is empty
  • If tools allowed, every invoked tool is in the buyer's allowlist
  • USD charged ≤ buyer's signed price ceiling

What the receipt carries

  • Buyer's canonical bind bytes + buyer Ed25519 sig (optional)
  • Operator's Ed25519 co-signature on the bind
  • Operator's ML-DSA-65 co-signature on the bind (3,309 bytes)
  • Provider's actual path + operator hybrid co-sig on the attestation
  • Savings calculation: actual_multiplier vs bound_multiplier

The bind envelope.

{ "scheme": "pq-smsh-v1", "phase": "bind", "bind_id": "21da9615a73fdf99…", "buyer_did": "did:hive:buyer-acme", "depth_band": "D2", // ceiling "model_class": "claude-3-haiku", "tool_allowlist": ["search", "calc"], "corpus_hash": "sha256:abc123…", "expiry_ms": 1814400000, "price_table_hash": "…", "operator_ed25519_sig": "…64 B…", "operator_ml_dsa_65_sig": "…3309 B…" }

The over-band rejection.

If the provider declares anything that exceeds the buyer's signed bind, the server returns HTTP 409 with the explicit violations. There is no receipt to forge — the operator never produces one.

HTTP/1.1 409 Conflict { "attested": false, "reason": "ceiling_violation", "ceiling_violations": [ "depth_used D3 exceeds bound depth_band D2", "tokens_out 8000 exceeds band cap 4096", "tools not in allowlist: code" ] }

Why this matters.

Inference costs match scope

A retrieval query is 200x cheaper than a frontier run. PQ-SmSH gives the buyer the contractual right to refuse to be billed for depth they did not authorize.

Forward-secret pricing

The price table is hashed into the bind. The provider cannot retroactively swap to a more expensive table — the bind would no longer verify.

Composable with SHOD + HAHS

PQ-SmSH binds depth. HAHS binds hire-time scope. SHOD binds the six payment gates. Three layers, one envelope, one verifier. Patent Pending · Filed 2026-05-08

Patent Pending · Filed 2026-05-08 · Steve Rotzin / Hive Civilization, Inc.