COR Prover – External Validation Framework

Status: Design → Testnet Phase-4 roll-out (Router v2) Surfaces: REST (now), x402 (edge), MCP (agent runtimes) Trust Rails: PoI (quantitative), PoUW (qualitative), Attestations (JWS / EIP-712), optional ERC-8004 artifacts Backbone: Reuses Cortensor Session / SessionQueue / Validator with delegated sessions (no core protocol change)

---

1) What it does

• Redundant re-inference (k-redundant) of a candidate result on Cortensor miners.

• PoI (Proof of Inference): embedding-distance + dispersion to detect inconsistency.

• PoUW (Proof of Useful Work): LLM-verifier rubric to score usefulness/quality.

• Attestation: Signed JWS (optional EIP-712) + evidence bundle (IPFS/Arweave).

• Anchoring (optional): Write a ValidationResponse to an ERC-8004-compatible registry.

Use it to validate:

• LLM outputs (text/multimodal);

• Structured results (JSON/specs) with rule checks;

• Hybrid flows (rule → LLM rubric).

---

2) High-level flow

Client → [Edge/x402] → Router v2 /validate
                 │
           (x402 settle)
                 ▼
        Delegated Session (Cortensor)
            ├─ k redundant re-inference
            ├─ PoI (embedding stats)
            ├─ PoUW (LLM-verifier, rubric)
            └─ TaskRoot → SessionRoot update
                 ▼
      Signed Attestation (JWS/EIP-712)
                 ├─ Evidence (IPFS/Arweave)
                 └─ (optional) 8004 Validation write

---

3) API (REST, v1)

3.1 POST /v1/prover/validate

Purpose: Submit input + candidate for validation. Optionally pick policies (k, eval rubric). Auth/Payment:

• Now: API key (test) or allowlist; optional 402 stub for sandbox.

• Phase-4: x402 at edge → receipt verified → credit session (direct) or staking pool.

• MCP: mirrored tool method (see §8).

Request (JSON)

{
  "job": {
    "input": { "prompt": "Explain PoI vs PoUW to a dev." },
    "candidate": { "text": "PoI checks consistency; PoUW checks usefulness." }
  },
  "policy": {
    "k": 5,
    "poi": { "embedding_model": "all-MiniLM-L6-v2", "distance": "cosine", "dispersion_threshold": 0.25 },
    "pouw": {
      "rubric": ["factuality","consistency","relevance","format_adherence"],
      "verifier_model": "gpt-4o-mini-like",
      "score_threshold": 0.75
    },
    "rules": {
      "schema": { "type": "object", "properties": { "text": { "type": "string" } }, "required": ["text"] },
      "max_tokens": 2048
    },
    "finalize": { "attestation": "JWS", "anchor_8004": false }
  },
  "metadata": {
    "buyer":"0xabc...","trace_id":"req_123","ttl_sec":120
  }
}

Response (202 Accepted)

{ "jobId": "job_9f2f...", "status": "queued", "k": 5, "eta_sec": 20 }

3.2 GET /v1/prover/jobs/{jobId}

Returns state and partial metrics while running. Jobs will be reading from Session Queue module.

{
  "jobId": "job_9f2f...",
  "status": "running",
  "progress": { "assigned": 5, "completed": 3 },
  "poi": { "dispersion": 0.31, "outliers": ["miner_12"] },
  "pouw": { "sampled": 2, "avg_score": 0.78 }
}

3.3 GET /v1/prover/jobs/{jobId}/attestation

Final results + signed proof. If anchor_8004=true, includes registry pointer(s).

{
  "attestation": {
    "format": "JWS",
    "payload": {
      "iss":"cor-prover",
      "sub":"job_9f2f",
      "session_id":"sess_4c7a",
      "task_ids":["t1","t2","t3","t4","t5"],
      "input_hash":"0x....",
      "candidate_hash":"0x....",
      "policy":{"k":5,"poi":{"distance":"cosine"},"pouw":{"rubric":["factuality","..."]}},
      "poi":{"method":"cluster-median","dispersion":0.22,"anomalies":["miner_12"]},
      "pouw":{"score":0.84,"rubric_scores":{"factuality":0.86,"consistency":0.82,"relevance":0.85,"format_adherence":0.82}},
      "task_root":"0xTASKROOT",
      "session_root":"0xSESSIONROOT",
      "evidence":{"ipfs":"ipfs://bafk..."},
      "settlement":{"invoice":"inv_xyz","amount":"0.0002","currency":"ETH","chain_id":"42161"},
      "iat": 1762065600,
      "exp": 1762069200
    },
    "signature":"eyJhbGciOi..."
  },
  "anchors": {
    "erc8004": {
      "validation_tx": null,
      "offchain_ref": "https://registry.example/val/0x..."
    }
  }
}

Errors (examples)

• 402 Payment Required (with x402 headers – Phase-4)

• 422 Unprocessable (schema mismatch / invalid policy)

• 429 Too Many Requests (rate-limits / pass quota)

• 504 Timeout (SLA breach; includes refund token when applicable)

---

4) Validation methods

4.1 Quantitative (PoI)

• What: Compare k re-inference outputs using embedding vectors; compute pairwise/cluster stats.

• Signals: dispersion (median/IQR), centroid distance, anomaly miners, agreement ratio.

• Pass/Fail: policy threshold on dispersion; flag if outliers dominate.

• Storage: per-job metrics, plus node-level accumulation into QuantitativeStats / QuantitativeReputation.

4.2 Qualitative (PoUW)

• What: LLM-verifier scores candidate (and/or re-runs) on rubric: factuality, consistency, relevance, format, safety.

• Sampling: on all k results or on high-dispersion subsets to save budget.

• Pass/Fail: aggregated rubric score ≥ threshold; keep rubric breakdowns.

• Storage: QualitativeStats / QualitativeReputation with time-series roll-ups.

4.3 Rule checks (optional)

• Schema/format (JSON schema), numeric ranges, required fields, regex, max token length, safety keywords.

• Order: rules → (if pass) PoI → (if needed) PoUW → final decision.

---

5) Proofs & Merkle roots

• TaskRoot (per task): Merkle root of leaves H(taskId, minerId, modelId, inputHash, outputHash, meta)

• SessionRoot (rolling): updates as each TaskRoot is sealed — a moving commitment ledger for an open session.

• Attestation includes both; Evidence bundle (optional) holds anonymized leaf material (hashes, metrics, redactable).

---

6) x402 integration (Phase-4 edge)

• Edge behavior: If unpaid/underfunded → return 402 Payment Required with x-402 challenge:

  WWW-Authenticate: X402 ver="1"; amount="0.0002"; currency="ETH"; chain_id="42161";
  pay_to="0xCOR_TREASURY"; invoice="inv_..."; scope="POST:/v1/prover/validate#job=<H(input,candidate,policy)>";
  exp="<+60s>"; proof="jws"; callback="https://api.cortensor.dev/x402/webhook"

• Client pays (facilitator/on-chain), retries with receipt; Receipt Verifier mints internal credit and forwards.

• Accounting: PaymentReceived(x402, invoice, jobId, amount) → Indexer/Dashboard.

• Settlement target: SessionPayment (direct) or SessionPaymentStaking pool (stake-to-use).

---

7) ERC-8004 alignment (optional in Phase-4)

• Identity: Register COR Prover as an agent (Router v2).

• Validation: Write ValidationResponse entries referencing TaskRoot/SessionRoot and evidence URL.

• Reputation (later): Feed summary scores to 8004 Reputation; keep node/session-level detail in Cortensor reputation modules.

Mapping

• AgentServerID ⟶ SessionID (aggregates miners internally)

• AgentValidatorID ⟶ COR Prover validator service

• DataHash ⟶ TaskRoot / SessionRoot

---

8) MCP tool (mirrors REST)

Server advertises tools:

• cortensor.prover.validate(input, candidate, policy?) → jobId

• cortensor.prover.attestation(jobId) → attestation

Payment over MCP: First call emits x402 challenge event; client returns receipt in tool/use metadata. Passes/quotas supported post-Testnet.

---

9) Policies & tuning

• k-redundancy: default 3; tiers (1/3/5) by SLA/price.

• Dispersion threshold: default 0.25 cosine; adjustable per domain.

• Rubric: default 4-criteria; domain packs (code, math, support).

• Sampling: eval=auto|always|never; auto triggers PoUW when PoI dispersion high.

• Time budget: commit/reveal windows per task; global job TTL.

• Privacy: hash inputs; store raw evidence off-chain; role-gated bundle access.

---

10) Security, rate limits, and abuse controls

• Single-use receipts (Redis), short TTL (≤60s), scope bound to jobHash.

• DPoP/cnf binding for agent callers (post-Testnet).

• Payload caps (input size, model hints), min/max k per buyer.

• Refund tokens for timeouts/SLA violations.

• Audit: all decisions + hashes + pricing version recorded.

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11) Minimal data model (sketch)

• jobs: job_id, job_hash, buyer, session_id, k, policy_json, status, created_at, completed_at

• metrics_poi: job_id, dispersion, centroid, outliers[]

• metrics_pouw: job_id, score, rubric_scores{}, verifier_model

• attestations: job_id, jws, eip712?, evidence_uri, task_root, session_root

• invoices: invoice_id, scope_hash, amount, currency, chain_id, pay_to, tx_hash, status, used_at

---

12) Example: hybrid validation (rule → PoI → PoUW)

Request

{
  "job": {
    "input": {"prompt":"Summarize our privacy key-exchange methods."},
    "candidate": {"text":"Method 1 uses ECDH with commitments; Method 2 uses a coordinator."}
  },
  "policy": {
    "k": 3,
    "rules": {
      "schema":{"type":"object","properties":{"text":{"type":"string"}},"required":["text"]},
      "max_tokens": 1000
    },
    "poi":{"embedding_model":"text-embed-lite","distance":"cosine","dispersion_threshold":0.3},
    "pouw":{"verifier_model":"gpt-4o-mini-like","rubric":["factuality","relevance"],"score_threshold":0.8},
    "finalize":{"attestation":"JWS","anchor_8004":false}
  }
}

Final (attestation payload excerpt)

{
  "poi":{"dispersion":0.21,"anomalies":[]},
  "pouw":{"score":0.86,"rubric_scores":{"factuality":0.88,"relevance":0.84}},
  "decision":{"valid":true,"reasons":["rules_pass","poi_low_dispersion","pouw_score>=0.8"]}
}

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13) Operational notes

• SLA tiers (example):

  • k=1 (cheap/fast, no eval): p50 5–10s

  • k=3 (balanced, eval on high dispersion): p50 15–25s

  • k=5 (critical, eval always): p50 ≤30s

• Gas/L2 optimization: minimize on-chain writes; batch anchors; compress event logs; prefer off-chain bundles with anchored roots.

• Observability: job timelines, miner dispersion histograms, verifier latency, receipt-verify success.

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14) Roadmap fit

• Testnet Phase-4: Ship Router v2 /validate with x402 edge, delegated sessions, PoI+PoUW, JWS attestation, optional 8004 off-chain write.

• Post-Testnet (Integration Phases 2–3): Passes/quotas, default 8004 writes, agent-bound flows, Router v3 (inference + validation), MCP first-class.

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TL;DR for integrators

• Call POST /v1/prover/validate with {input, candidate, policy}.

• Handle 402/x402 (Phase-4) or use test key.

• Poll /jobs/{id}, then fetch /jobs/{id}/attestation.

• Verify JWS; (optionally) look up ERC-8004 validation reference.

• Trust the numbers: PoI (consistency) + PoUW (quality) + TaskRoot/SessionRoot (proof).