Publication manifest signing v0.1

Publication evidence is a verifiable chain. Schema validity, byte identity, scientific comparability, authorship attestation, and archival deposition remain separate checks.

FiberPhotometry authenticates a completed evidence bundle with a detached OpenSSH signature. The signed payload is a canonical JSON attestation binding the exact manifest.json SHA-256, project fingerprint, signer identity, signing time, signature method, and a fixed application namespace.

Why an attestation

The manifest already binds every analysis, report, and NWB artifact by checksum. Signing its digest authenticates that complete evidence root without modifying the manifest after signing. The detached signature and attestation remain external to the manifest and can be copied alongside the bundle.

Only bundles with a verified manifest and complete status may be signed. Signing refuses to replace existing files unless the caller explicitly requests overwrite.

OpenSSH trust model

The namespace is fixed to fiberphotometry-publication@aeronjl.github.io, preventing a signature made for a different application from being accepted here. Verification supplies the signed identity to ssh-keygen -Y verify and requires a matching key in an independently maintained allowed_signers file. Restricting each entry with a namespaces= option is strongly recommended.

OpenSSH documents that -Y sign accepts a private key or a public key backed by ssh-agent, that namespaces provide domain separation, and that -Y verify requires an identity and allowed-signers file and reports success through exit status zero: OpenSSH ssh-keygen(1).

Verification sequence

verify_publication_manifest:

1. verifies every ordinary artifact against manifest.json;
2. strictly parses attestation schema v1;
3. recalculates and compares the manifest and project fingerprints;
4. verifies the detached SSHSIG under the fixed namespace;
5. requires the signed identity to be authorized by allowed_signers.

The verifier returns a PublicationVerification only after all five checks pass. Trust files and private keys must not be stored inside the publication bundle.