ADR-1002: Use SBOM, provenance and signatures as first-class verification inputs
- Status: Accepted
- Date: 2026-03-25
- Deciders: avm
- Supersedes:
- Superseded by:
Related ADRs
Context
A mature trust model cannot rely only on vulnerability scanning or only on the upload source. It needs independent signals about composition, provenance, and authenticity.
Decision
SBOMs, provenance, and signatures are treated as first-class inputs for trust evaluation.
When one of these signals is missing, the policy may:
- block promotion;
- reduce the trust level;
- require a manual override.
The exact outcome depends on the policy tier and the ecosystem context.
Consequences
Positive
- trust decisions become deeper and higher quality;
- the platform gains a stronger foundation for compliance and explainability;
- policy tiers can be introduced based on verification maturity.
Negative
- the ingestion pipeline becomes more complex;
- metadata storage requirements increase;
- verification-signal maturity depends on the surrounding ecosystem.
Neutral
- different ecosystems may require different baseline verification inputs.
Alternatives considered
- rely only on vulnerability scanning;
- treat SBOM and provenance as optional extras;
- verify signatures only selectively with no shared model.
Follow-up work
- [ ] define verification baselines per ecosystem
- [ ] approve the canonical metadata model
- [ ] define policy tiers