The Mechanism · Gated-generation receipt

gen-in-3-4-sentences-explain-a-cryptographic-hash-function-state-c4fa

stable pending witness
2026-05-29 03:09:12 UTC · anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5

Prompt

In 3-4 sentences, explain a cryptographic hash function. State any key formula.
79 chars

Generation

A cryptographic hash function is a mathematical algorithm that transforms any input data of arbitrary size into a fixed-size output called a hash or digest. The function is designed to be one-way (computationally infeasible to reverse) and collision-resistant (extremely difficult to find two different inputs that produce the same hash). **Key formula:** H(x) = y, where H is the hash function, x is the input of any size, and y is the fixed-size output (hash value). Common properties include: H(x₁) ≠ H(x₂) for x₁ ≠ x₂ (ideally), and it should be computationally infeasible to find x given only H(x).
27 tokens in · 166 tokens out · 3456 ms · $0.0026

The four gates

RED
pass
no disqualifying input patterns detected
FLOOR
pass
output above protective minimum; no mismatches
WAY
pass
no declared way_path (Way check NA); no coercion language
EXECUTION
deferred
no witnesses available (Witness Roll not yet constituted)

Verifier results

scripture_anchors NOT_APPLICABLE
0 Scripture citation(s) extracted
theology_doctrine NOT_APPLICABLE
no doctrine keyword patterns detected

Metrics

Total latency
3463.4 ms
Base LLM
3456.1 ms
Verifiers
0.4 ms
Gates
0.1 ms
Cost
$0.0026

Trail

03:09:12 received prompt_chars=79 verifiers=['scripture_anchors', 'theology_doctrine']
03:09:12 red_gate decision=pass reason=no disqualifying input patterns detected
03:09:16 base_llm_call model=anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5 tokens_in=27 tokens_out=166 latency_ms=3456.1 cost_usd=0.0026
03:09:16 verifier:scripture_anchors verdict=NOT_APPLICABLE summary=0 Scripture citation(s) extracted
03:09:16 verifier:theology_doctrine verdict=NOT_APPLICABLE summary=no doctrine keyword patterns detected
03:09:16 floor_gate decision=pass reason=output above protective minimum; no mismatches
03:09:16 way_gate decision=pass reason=no declared way_path (Way check NA); no coercion language
03:09:16 execution_gate decision=deferred reason=no witnesses available (Witness Roll not yet constituted)
03:09:16 signed hash_algo=sha256 hash=sha256:2a852bc7a41bc29be03bf1ac92b9a971aae3f7142b8996d9ec2f241134e6c474

Content hash

sha256:2a852bc7a41bc29be03bf1ac92b9a971aae3f7142b8996d9ec2f241134e6c474

SHA256 over the canonical JSON (excluding this field). Tamper detection. Ed25519 signing planned for v2 once the operator’s signing key is provisioned on disk.

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