Inspect and export audit records

Read instrumented decisions and outcomes, check local chain integrity, and export evidence for another recipient. Core v0.6.0 includes the local audit store, query commands and SIEM export.

opaque audit tail --limit 50
opaque audit tail --query github --limit 20
opaque audit verify

A request ID correlates records; it does not make a provider call idempotent. For an unresolved task, inspect its receipt with opaque task show <task-id> and use opaque task reconcile <task-id> to read evidence without dispatching again.

Durability and retention

The SQLite audit store uses a keyed hash chain and authenticated head. Startup and retention verify existing history; corruption stops startup. Retention removes only an expired insertion-order prefix and authenticates the boundary without changing surviving hashes. A clock regression can keep an old-timestamp event until preceding live events expire. Export cursors remain monotonic after pruning.

Registered operations wait for audit durability before dispatch and before returning successful payloads. Tasks also maintain an independent durable reservation and receipt ledger. An audit failure after an external effect cannot undo it: the caller receives an uncertain outcome. Denials and diagnostic events are asynchronous and cannot authorize an effect. Persistence failures and queue losses remain visible for the sink's lifetime.

CLI retries cover connection establishment. CLI and MCP do not automatically replay a dispatched operation after a lost response or deadline. Consumed task and MCP attempts remain spent when their outcomes are unknown.

Independent evidence

A process holding the HMAC key can forge locally valid history. An older intact snapshot can also verify locally. Keep checkpoints and high-water references outside the producer's administration to detect covered rollback or discontinuity.

Signed evidence checkpoints authenticate exact export bytes, an enrolled producer and a declared range without sharing the HMAC key. They do not prove unobserved effects, global completeness or restored authority. Older audit heads require the guide's explicit offline upgrade against an independently archived exact export; startup does not silently migrate them.

When investigating failures, preserve the database, any WAL/SHM state and matching .hmac key. Do not edit rows or remove keys to force startup. Audit exports cannot reconstruct consumed authority or revocation history; follow storage and recovery boundaries.

Collection and analysis

Surface	Current behavior
Local dashboard	Authenticated read-only queries and a resumable audit stream
SIEM export	Spool, HTTPS webhook or TLS syslog, each with a durable cursor; at-least-once delivery
Approval detector	Checks recorded required approval against granted approval or a lease before recorded operation success; emits audit.alert on a violation

The detector evaluates recorded events, not omitted actions or independent provider completion. Protect exports as sensitive metadata: principal labels, targets and secret references can disclose context even when values are omitted.

Build additional analysis as a derived view of authenticated exports; it must not become an authorization source.