Verifying the ledger

Verification re-walks an entity's entire chain, recomputes every hash and checks every link. It is the answer to "can you prove this record has not been altered?"

Running a verification#

Use Verify integrity on the entity's Ledger page, or call the API directly. Either way the work happens in the background: the request returns immediately with an identifier, and you poll for the result. Recomputation runs inside the database rather than in application code, so the bytes being hashed are exactly the stored bytes.

Every run is itself recorded, with who started it, when, how many events were checked and what the outcome was. A history of verifications is often what an auditor actually wants to see: evidence that you check, not just that you can.

Reading the result#

Checking a single event#

Opening any event in the Ledger recomputes just that event's hash and compares it with what is stored, showing the result as a proof block. It is instant and useful for spot checks, but it only examines one row. Whether the chain around it is intact is a separate question that only a full verification answers.

What the receipt proves#

A completed run produces a signed receipt over the organisation, the entity, the start time, the number of events checked, the result, and the identifier of the first broken event if there was one.

{
  "verification_id": "3c9a1f04-52ab-4f1e-8b0c-9d2e6a7f1b34",
  "result": "verified",
  "events_verified": 1842,
  "started_at": "2026-08-03T11:02:17.004Z",
  "completed_at": "2026-08-03T11:02:18.219Z",
  "broken_at_event_id": null,
  "receipt_signature": "b7f3c1d2e4a5..."
}

If a chain comes back broken#

A broken result means a covered field on some event no longer matches its recorded hash, or a link no longer points where it should. Reaching that state requires bypassing the append-only triggers, which means database-level access rather than anything reachable through Governax.

• Note the first broken event. Everything before it verified, so the chain is intact up to that point and the break is bounded.
• Do not attempt to repair it. The ledger cannot be edited, and a break is evidence. Preserve it.
• Contact us immediately. A broken chain on a hosted deployment is an incident on the Governax side, not a misconfiguration on yours.

Remember what verification can and cannot tell you: it proves that what is recorded has not changed. It cannot prove that everything that happened was recorded. The limits of the hash, including the fields it does not cover, are set out in The hash chain and append-only enforcement.