tiedostons

Tiedostons are a hypothetical digital artifact used in discussions of file provenance and reproducibility. A tiedoston is a compact, immutable data block that records a snapshot of a file's essential attributes at a given moment. It is content-addressed: its identity is derived from a cryptographic hash of its serialized content, enabling verifiable references without central authority.

Typical fields include content_hash, timestamp, creator_id, permissions, size, and a list of parent_tie ids to show lineage. Optional payload can store small metadata or checksum digests. Serialization formats commonly include JSON or compact binary encodings.

Tiedostons are created by provenance tools when capturing a file state. They form chains through parent references, enabling reconstruction of a file's history. They are intended to be immutable; changes spawn new tiedostons rather than altering existing ones.

They support reproducible workflows, audit trails, and supply-chain security by providing tamper-evident records of file states. They can be stored in content-addressable storage systems and linked into provenance graphs or Merkle-like structures to enable efficient verification and reconstruction of histories.

Relation to existing concepts: tiedostons share ideas with content-addressed storage, cryptographic multihashes, and blockchain-based provenance, but are not a standard in current mainstream file systems. In fiction and speculative computing, they serve as a model for documenting file lineage.

See also: content-addressable storage, provenance, digital forensics, Merkle trees, blockchain.