Trust Keywords

Five keywords for document integrity — tracking versions, recording approvals, signing with hash verification, sealing against modification, and formally amending sealed documents.

track:

Category: Trust Since: v2.8

Activates document version tracking. Once set, the CLI records revisions below the history: boundary automatically.

Syntax

track: | version: value | by: author

Properties

Property	Type	Required	Description
version	string	yes	Current version identifier
by	string	yes	Who created this version

Examples

track: | version: 1.0 | by: Ahmed Al-Rashid
track: | version: 2.3 | by: Sarah Chen

Notes

• track: content is typically empty — data is in properties
• Required before approve:, sign:, or freeze: can be used
• History is recorded automatically below x-trust: history as x-trust: revision blocks

Related

• approve: — next step in the trust chain
• Trust & Signing Guide

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approve:

Category: Trust Since: v2.8

Named approval stamp. Records who approved the document, their role, and when.

Syntax

approve: description | by: name | role: title | at: timestamp | ref: reference

Properties

Property	Type	Required	Description
by	string	yes	Approver name
role	string	no	Approver's role or title
at	string	no	Approval timestamp (ISO 8601)
ref	string	no	Reference to approval authority or document

Examples

approve: Legal review complete | by: Sarah Chen | role: General Counsel | at: 2026-03-05
approve: Finance approved | by: James Miller | role: CFO | at: 2026-03-06
approve: Compliance review | by: Maria Santos | role: Compliance Officer | ref: Policy CMP-2026-01

Notes

• Multiple approve: blocks are common — legal, finance, compliance, management
• Requires track: to be set first
• Queryable: intenttext query . --type approve --by "Sarah Chen"

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sign:

Category: Trust Since: v2.8

Integrity hash seal. Records the signer's name, role, timestamp, and a SHA-256 hash of the document body at the time of signing. If the document is modified after signing, the stored hash will no longer match and verification will report the discrepancy. This is tamper evidence via hash comparison, not cryptographic non-repudiation.

Syntax

sign: signer name | role: title | at: timestamp | hash: algorithm:value

Properties

Property	Type	Required	Description
role	string	no	Signer's role
at	string	no	Signing timestamp (ISO 8601)
hash	string	no	Content hash at time of signing

Examples

sign: Ahmed Al-Rashid | role: CEO | at: 2026-03-06T14:32:00Z | hash: sha256:a1b2c3d4e5f6
sign: James Miller | role: CFO | at: 2026-03-06T15:00:00Z

sign: vs x-doc: signline

	sign:	x-doc: signline
Type	Digital	Physical
Verification	SHA-256 hash comparison — machine-verifiable	Visual line on paper — human-verifiable
Lives in	The .it file permanently	The printed/PDF output
Use case	File integrity verification	Paper contract signatures

Use both when a contract needs digital verification and paper signatures.

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freeze:

Category: Trust Since: v2.8 Aliases: lock:

Seal the document. After freeze:, any edit to the content above invalidates the hash.

Syntax

freeze: | status: locked | at: timestamp | hash: algorithm:value

Properties

Property	Type	Description
status	string	locked
at	string	Sealing timestamp (ISO 8601)
hash	string	Content hash of the frozen document

Examples

freeze: | status: locked | at: 2026-03-06T14:33:00Z | hash: sha256:e5f6a7b8

Notes

• freeze: content is typically empty — data is in properties
• After freezing, the only permitted additions are amendment: blocks
• Use intenttext seal to compute the hash and add sign: + freeze: automatically
• Use intenttext verify to check the hash against current content

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amendment:

Category: Trust Since: v2.11 Aliases: amend:, change:

Formal change to a frozen document. Preserves the original seal while recording what was changed, where, who authorized it, and when.

Syntax

amendment: description | section: target | was: previous | now: current | ref: identifier | by: author | at: timestamp | approved-by: approver | hash: value

Properties

Property	Type	Required	Description
section	string	yes	Which section was amended
was	string	no	The previous value or text
now	string	yes	The new value or text
ref	string	no	Amendment reference identifier
by	string	no	Who authored the amendment
at	string	no	Amendment timestamp
approved-by	string	no	Who approved the amendment
hash	string	no	Hash of the amendment block

Examples

amendment: Payment terms updated | section: Payment | was: Net 30 | now: Net 15 | ref: Amendment #1 | by: Ahmed Al-Rashid | approved-by: Sarah Chen
amendment: Scope extended | section: Scope | now: Includes Phase 2 deliverables | ref: Amendment #2 | by: Ahmed Al-Rashid | at: 2026-04-01

The amendment model

Without amendment:, changing a frozen document means:

1. Breaking the seal (invalidating freeze: and sign:)
2. Making edits, re-approving, re-signing, re-freezing

All original signatures are voided. The audit trail has a gap.

With amendment::

• The original seal is preserved
• The amendment is additive — it records the change alongside the sealed content
• Each amendment can have its own approval chain (approved-by:)
• intenttext verify reports both the original seal status and all amendments

CLI

intenttext amend contract.it \
  --section "Payment" \
  --was "Net 30" \
  --now "Net 15" \
  --ref "Amendment #1" \
  --by "Ahmed Al-Rashid"

Notes

• Validation error AMENDMENT_WITHOUT_FREEZE if the document has no freeze: block
• Amendments appear after freeze: but before the x-trust: history boundary
• Each amendment is independently queryable

Related

• freeze: — amendments require a frozen document
• Trust & Signing guide →

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The trust chain

A typical trust workflow combines all five keywords:

title: Service Agreement

section: Parties
contact: Ahmed Al-Rashid | role: CEO | email: ahmed@acme.com
contact: Sarah Chen | role: General Counsel | email: sarah@acme.com

section: Terms
text: Full contract terms...

track: | version: 1.0 | by: Ahmed Al-Rashid
approve: Legal review complete | by: Sarah Chen | role: General Counsel | at: 2026-03-05
sign: Ahmed Al-Rashid | role: CEO | at: 2026-03-06T14:32:00Z | hash: sha256:a1b2c3d4
freeze: | status: locked | at: 2026-03-06T14:33:00Z | hash: sha256:e5f6a7b8

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Extension keywords

Automated history and revision blocks are available in the x-trust: namespace. These are managed by the CLI — you do not write them manually.

Extension	Purpose
x-trust: history	History boundary marker — separates live document from machine-managed history section
x-trust: revision	Auto-generated change record written by intenttext seal and intenttext amend

See Extension Keywords → for full syntax documentation.