Docs

Bind and check a document

Optionally bind the text you signed to a record, and let a reader check a document against it in their browser, comparing wording, not exact text.

A writing record shows the shape of an editing process. On its own it is not tied to any particular finished document; the URL could be pasted next to anything. Binding closes that gap: when you sign, you can commit the record to the specific text you wrote, so a reader can later check whether a document they were given is that text.

This is provenance, not a verdict. A match says the words line up; it never claims a human wrote them.

Binding when you sign

In /write, the browser extension, and Emacs, signing offers to bind the document:

• You affirm: “this is the text this record is meant to cover.”
• Binding is on by default; you can opt out and sign the process only (no document bound), for example while you are still editing.
• You choose a policy:
  • Allow extra text before or after it (the default): tolerates a quoted header pasted above your text or a signature line appended below.
  • Only this text: strict; nothing added.

The producer computes the binding locally from the final text and discards the text. Only a content-blind commitment is uploaded: a salted hash of the text’s canonical letters and digits, plus its length and policy. The text itself never leaves your machine, and the commitment cannot be turned back into the text.

A selection with no letters or digits (for example emoji or punctuation only) cannot be bound; signing falls back to process-only.

Checking a document

A record that has a binding shows a Check a document box. Paste the document you want to check; the comparison runs in your browser and the pasted text is never uploaded. You get one of:

• Same wording as the signed text.
• Same wording, plus N more characters after it (an appended signature or footer), or with N more before it (a quoted header).
• These letters don’t match what the author signed.

What a match means, and does not

A match compares letters and digits in order. It ignores spacing, punctuation, case, and number formatting. It is not a check of exact text.

That looseness is deliberate; it survives the mangling real documents pick up in transit (rewrapped lines, smart quotes, changed spacing). The cost is that texts which share the same ordered letters and digits read as a match even when they differ in punctuation or number formatting. For example, $1,000.00 and $100,000 both reduce to 100000, so they would verify as the same wording. When a binding covers only a short run of text, the checker says so, because a short run is weak evidence on its own.

The check is edge-anchored: it matches the whole document, its start, or its end. It does not search the interior. If your signed text sits in the middle of a larger paste (material both before and after), paste just the signed portion to check it.

The other half is yours to judge

Binding answers “is this the text that was signed?” It does not answer “was this much writing actually done here?” That second question is contextual, so the record shows it as facts under How this was written, the signed text’s size next to the recorded process (duration, edit count, pastes), and leaves the judgment to you. An automated wording match is never combined with that human judgment into a single “verified” verdict.

Records with no binding

A record may carry no binding: the signer bound the process only, or it predates the feature. Those records show “No document was bound to this record.” That is a plain statement of fact, not a failure: the writing-record and its hash chain are exactly as valid; there is simply no document to check against.